hacking in the Database
by Xavon Wrentaile
Summary: Kite and BlackRose (.HACK) and Kirito and Asuna (SAO) attempt to find the missing players of Elder Tale (Log Horizon) only to end up in said game themselves.
1. INTERFACE INSTALLATION

**|INTERFACE INSTALLATION|**

It started, for Kirigaya Kazuto, like so many things had recently, when he received an email from Kikuoka Seijirou. It asked him to come to the usual table, at the usual restaurant, at a certain date and time. What was different was that Asuna received the same request. Seijirou generally respected his request to keep the young woman out of their business. She worried, she did not need the money, her parents could make things problematic for both of them; the young man had a laundry list of reasonable excuses. Though he suspected the government agent agreed mainly because it was easier than arguing.

The young couple decided to meet up first and travel to the cafe together.

"What do you think it is?"Asuna asked her boyfriend softly, not wanting the taxi driver to hear them.

"I don't know," he replied, "Since he asked for both of us, maybe something to do with one of the Sleeping Knights? Or RECT Inc?"

She knew about his deal with the Virtual Division, to keep her out of the loop, and was torn. She liked that he wanted to protect her, but was frequently annoyed that that meant she was left in the dark and unable to help him. At the same time, given she still sometimes clashed with her mother, she could not argue too much.

The deal was obviously reflected in his suggestions, that she would not have been called if their was not already a link. She felt her ire growing, but forced it back down at the worry on his face.

"I haven't heard anything from Siune-san or my parents," she answered, and then could not resist the urge to rub it in, "But since I would have been left out of the loop otherwise, you could be right."

He looked mildly chagrined, but as the cab rounded a corner and the restaurant came into view, they settled into a thoughtful silence, both thinking that they would find out soon enough.

Inside, they started towards the regular table, but paused when they saw an unfamiliar couple sitting there. Kazuto and Asuna started looking around for Kikuoka, but they did not see the agent. Instead the man at their table caught their attention and waved them over.

They were a few years older than the teens, appearing to be in their late twenties. As they stood to meet the younger duo, they were both the same height, splitting the difference between Kirito's and Asuna's heights. The woman had short hair, a few shades darker than Asuna's chestnut locks. She was slimmer, too; if Asuna had the build of a swimsuit model, than the other woman looked like a professional athlete. She was cute, with a button nose, soft grey eyes, and thin lips, but Kazuto didn't think she was quite as beautiful as his girl. The man had black hair, longer than Kazuto's or the woman's, and a softer build than Kirigaya. He looked like an officer worker who kept in shape, compared to the sharper lines of the practicing swordsman.

"Kirigaya-san, Yuki-san, thank you for coming," the man said stiffly and gestured for them to sit. As they sat down again, Asuna noticed the casual ease with which their hands touched, and that each was wearing a wedding band.

"Of course," Kazuto answered with typical Japanese politeness, while Asuna inclined her head. There was a moment of pause, as if each side was waiting for the other. Then the man spoke.

"Tell me, what do you know about Elder Tale," he requested.

"Elder Tale, the oldest active MMORPG," Kazuto relaxed, falling into his element, "It has been online for almost twenty years, and has had twelve expansions. Used the Half GAIA project to create a half scale version of this world for its map."

"Wait, twenty years," Asuna frowned, "That would mean..."

"Elder Tale also has the distinction of being the only online game to survive Pluto's Kiss," the other woman confirmed. Asuna still looked uncertain, so Kazuto continued.

"Elder Tale was a multiple platform game, on the old Windows, Apple, and Unix and even the Xbox 360 game system," Kirito said, and the other man gave him an approving look, "But at the time they were working on versions for the PS3 release, Wii Release, and even ALTIMIT OS. That is how it survived, Atharva Inc. had already converted half of their servers to ALTIMIT. They were able to get the Wii and PS3 versions out, and offered existing customers a free copy."

"But I thought The World was the first MMO after Pluto's Kiss," Asuna protested.

"It was, from a certain point of view," the man explained, "It was the first new MMO, and it was the first one for PCs. Atharva focused on the PS3 and Wii versions, so the ALTIMIT version didn't come out until after The World. And The World garnered more attention, due to its use of the FMD."

"But Elder Tale did fine," Kazuto added, "Plenty of people could not afford an FMD. And then there was the comas not long after The World was released."

Both of the adults flinched, which both of the teens noticed.

"And Elder Tale is still around, while The World shut down, so they must have done something right," the younger man said, watching them closely.

"Did you ever play either game, Kazuto?" Asuna asked innocently, knowing him well enough to see what he was doing.

"I never played Elder Tales," he admitted, "I was more interested in newer tech. Using a monitor and keyboard just didn't appeal to me. I did play The World R2 briefly before it shut down. I wasn't terribly impressed with the FMD. And that was right around the time they announced the NerveGear and... well..."

"Why did The World shut down?" the younger woman prompted her lover.

"With every new release, a few people fell into comas," Kazuto shook his head in dismay, "And people began to be to afraid to upgrade. Of course, that's if you don't believe the urban legends."

Their hosts frowned at that.

"Urban legends?"

Kazuto could hear the false innocence in Asuna's voice, but was not sure if the adults did. Either way, he repressed his grin and nodded sagely. He was beginning to suspect that the other couple worked for CC Corp.

"Supposedly the people who went into comas were trapped in the game by the monsters, and defeating the monsters let them wake up," he explained, not sure if Asuna was aware or not. She liked to play games now, but had not before SAO, and didn't follow their history like Kazuto did.

"Which is nonsense. Sure, the FMD might have caused seizures and comas in certain people. But they weren't like the FullDive headsets we have now. And they didn't even leave the players connected to the game, so how could anything in the game effect them?"

The man was obviously annoyed by his flippancy and dismissal. But the woman looked downright angry. The teen wondered if he might have pushed them too hard.

"Who did you say you were again?" Asuna asked.

"We didn't," the woman was almost growling.

"My name is Saitou Ryusei," the man answered, "And this is my wife, Saitou Akira."

The names sounded familiar to Kirito, and as he thought about their conversation, it came to him.

"Saitou-san," he addressed the woman nervously, "Your maiden name wouldn't happen to be Hayami, would it?"

She nodded smugly.

"Holy..." Kazuto barely cut himself off, "You're the dot Hackers."

"Kirito," Asuna prompted, falling back to his online name in her surprise.

"Is it true?" the young man asked.

"Yes," Ryusei answered, "All of it."

Kazuto's mind raced, and he realized the legends might be an exaggeration, not unlike some of the stories growing out of his own experiences. He had heard about using colors and images to treat some conditions. If the game's displays put people into a coma, maybe defeating certain monsters had released some sort of counter code. Show it to the people in the comas and they wake up.

"The dot Hackers were a group of gamers who saved the players put into comas by The World," Kirigaya explained in awe, "led by Kite and BlackRose, they defied CC Corp to rescue everyone."

"That sounds like us," Asuna said, understanding filling her voice.

"So, what is this about Elder Tale," Kazuto asked, his expression darkening, now that the connection was made. He remembered their initial question and came to one obvious conclusion. Now he just needed confirmation.

"Two months ago the new expansion was released," Akira said, her expression matching his, "Within one hour, 707,814 players worldwide had logged in. And at the one hour mark, 191,288 vanished."

"Vanished," Kazuto could not believe what he was hearing. Ryusei took out his smart phone, and showed them a video clip. It showed a young woman facing her computer. In the background, they could see a mirror showing a game on the monitor. Then the screen flashed bright enough that the camera was burned out for few frames. And when it came back, she was gone.

"The video hasn't been edited," Akira told them, "And we have over a hundred of them."

"At the same time, Atharva lost control of a third of their servers," her husband continued, "And that's the physical servers, each of the 13 servers that make of the Elder Tale is actually a bank of twenty-four physical devices, of which eight on each server are now operating outside of Atharva's control. And everyone who logs in goes on to the servers that are still under the company's control."

"You can't mean..." Asuna sounded incredulous.

"We don't know," Akira seemed to agree with the younger woman, "People's minds getting trapped in a game through a headset is one thing. Literally getting sucked into their monitors is..."

"Either way, that many players disappearing at the same as the company loses control of the servers can't be a coincidence," Kazuto mused.

"How have we not heard about this?" Asuna asked, "It's twenty times as many people were trapped in SAO."

"But with SAO, your bodies were left behind, and Kayaba announced what was happening to the media. Nothing like that has happened here."

"So what are you going to do?" Asuna asked.

"We are friends with some of the best white hats and grey hats in the world," Akira said, "They haven't been able to take control of the servers, but they have been able to find a way for us to log in to those servers instead of getting directed to the normal ones."

"And you want us to go with you," Kirito said, a hint of sharpness in his voice.

"No," Ryusei hissed angrily, "We want both of you to go back to your school. We want you to graduate and complete your VR probe so people in a MediCuboid and AIs can interact with the rest of the world..."

Both teens started; other than a handful of friends, Yui's existence was supposed to be a secret.

"… and you to take over your parents' company so you can help him."

Kite forced himself to sigh, noticing some of the people around them were looking.

"But the government doesn't trust us. They trust you. Or more likely, they think they can control you better. So they made us come here to ask."

"But you don't want us to help."

"No. You are both still children. And you have been through more than us, without being given a choice."

"Doesn't that make us more qualified?"

"Since you haven't even played Elder Tale, and we don't know what we will find when we log in; no, it doesn't."

Asuna and Akira shared a look. The look that only women can share when their significant others are being stupid.

"Would you be willing to help us?" Akira asked, "Even though we have no idea what we will find, and what the risk will be? We could literally end up in another world with no way home."

"You two are going to do it, aren't you?" Asuna asked softly.

"Yeah, but the thing is," Akira offered sadly, "we have friends who were playing Elder Tale and vanished. And the two of us never have been able to turn down a friend in need."

"This happens to your friends a lot?" the younger woman was confused again, "And they ask you to rescue them?"

"They never ask," Ryusei returned his attention back to the girls with a melancholy sigh, "more like screaming at us to save ourselves."

Asuna glared at Kazuto in affectionate annoyance at that. And Akira had her own glare for her husband.

"We can't let them help," Kite insisted.

"We had to ask them," she reminded him, "Now, if we don't let them help, all they have to do is go to Virtual Division. At best, they'll be helping us anyway. At worst, VD will try to stop us, and send them in anyway."

"But they..."

"Are two years older than we were during the Cursed Wave," Akira interrupted, already knowing what he meant to say, "And both are expert swordsmen."

"They haven't actually agreed yet," Ryusei's protest was weak, "They are just arguing because we said they can't."

Both of the teens just smirked. And Ryusei just sighed in defeat.

'Fine," he took out a business card and handed it to Kazuto, "If you insist, then meet us here tomorrow at 9 am."


	2. CHARACTER CREATION

**|CHARACTER CREATION|**

The building Kazuto and Asuna arrived at was not exactly your average office space. Three stories tall, there were no windows on the first floor, except the reinforced windows in the door. The next two levels had small openings covered with a mirrored substance the young woman assumed was one-way glass. The door bore the roman letters "QED" in a simple, bold font. The door did not have any sort of handle, though there was a card swiper and buzzer next to it. Pressing the buzzer had done nothing.

They had arrived seventeen minutes early, but had not expected to have to wait outside. Though it was still early, it was already starting to get warm. Both of the teens had dressed more conservatively than usual, as they were essentially having a business meeting at a company.

At five to nine, their hosts rounded the corner. Akira looked surprised, and then bothered, while Ryusei merely shook his head with a small smile.

"I apologize," the older man told them, "I hope we did not make you wait long."

"Not too long," Kazuto said politely.

"QED?" Asuna changed the subject, "Quod Erat Demonstrandum?"

"That is the reference," Akira acknowledged with a twisted grin, "Officially it is short for 'Query Every Database'."

Ryusei could not hold back a small chuckle, and the younger couple looked confused.

"Are we missing something?" Asuna prompted.

"Unofficially, it means Queen of Every Darkness'," the older woman said, again giving the name in English. Ryusei sighed, but he still looked amused.

"Our boss hates that name," he said, as he took a plastic card out of his wallet. Kazuto noted that it was not just a normal quantum strip card, but that it had what appeared to be touch panels opposite the strip. And said strip was dual sided. As if to validate Kirito's observation, Kite arranged his thumb and first two fingers carefully on the ID, before running it through the reader. Which in turn beeped obligingly, and the door slid back into the wall. Ryusei gestured for the others to enter before following them.

Inside, it looked surprisingly normal. The reception area had a pair of comfortable chairs on either side of the entryway, which fed them towards a large, built-in desk. On the wall behind it was the QED logo, and on either side were doors leading further into the office.

Seated at the desk was quite possibly the most beautiful woman Kazuto and Asuna had ever seen in real life. Her golden blonde hair cascaded down in past her shoulders in loose waves. Her kind blue eyes regarded them with casual joy, as if truly happy to see them. Her body shape was similar to Asuna's, though slightly larger in the bust. She wore a fitted business suit that looked like it cost more than all the clothing the two couples were wearing, combined.

"I apologize for not letting you in, Yuuki-san, Kirigaya-san," she said in a high clear voice, "But I was instructed not to allow you on premises until Kite and BlackRose arrived."

"Are none of you going to introduce yourselves?" Asuna sounded put out by the bypassing of Japanese traditional first meeting etiquette.

"So sorry," this time the woman behind the desk looked flustered, "I am Terashima Ryoko. It is my pleasure to meet you, please take care of me."

They murmured back similar platitudes, while Akira smiled at Ryoko. While the two adult women exchanged greetings, Ryusei addressed the younger duo.

"I will warn you, that from here on, everyone will be using an alias," he explained, "They are cautious about trusting, even with your reputations. It isn't meant as an insult."

"What about Terashima-san?" Kazuto frowned slightly.

"Ryoko-chan is the 'Local Public Face of QED, providing both Receptionist and Customer Interface services'," Akira sounded like she was reading from a script, but looked amused as she said it.

"I don't get a code name," Ryoko blushed slightly and looked away from the newcomers.

"It's a long story," Kite shook his head at his wife for needling their friend and coworker.

"It's not that long," Akira could not resist the urge to poke fun at her former rival, "She signed up for The World using her real name, so that became her code name, too."

"Come on, we will introduce you to the others," Ryusei insisted, before Ryoko could escalate. He had been through it enough times already. Still, Ryoko and Akira would not have bantered back and forth in front of just anyone, so he took that as a good sign for the younger pair. And then had to remind himself that he did not really want them there.

If there reception area looked like a proper business environment, the huge, open room behind it dispelled the impression. In the center was a large table, one that would not have been out of place in a high powered conference room, with a matching roller chairs for twenty people. But on the walls of the room were sixteen, 70 inch HD TVs. And between each TV and the conference table was a single person recliner or love seat. The casual chairs were a mishmash of styles and colors, making it look more like a fraternity from a movie than a business.

There were seven other people in the room; four women and three men, most in business casual attire, though one woman had a suit that put Ryoko's to shame, and another had on sneakers, jean shorts, and a Doctor Who t-shirt. Oddly enough, the last girl looked familiar to Kirito, and she noticed him staring.

"Come on, Kii-bou, you can do it," she encouraged him.

"Argo?" hearing the nickname, Asuna was the one who got it first.

"Bingo," the casually attired girl nodded broadly. She started to say something, but Asuna did a double take and walked to the oldest man.

"Excuse me," she said hesitantly, "You wouldn't happen to be Sakuma Ryo-sensei, would you?"

"Well, it looks like Bear has a fan," one of the other women said. She was the only one wearing a dress, and easily had the largest chest of anyone in the room.

"Stow it, Pi," the woman standing next to the writer, the one in the most expensive outfit, said sharply.

"Yes, that is correct," he admitted, "How did you know?"

"My mother is a fan," the girl explained, "She has a picture of herself with you, from one of your book signings."

"Ah, then you aren't a fan," he sounded only mildly disappointed.

"I have read a few of your books, and I did enjoy them," Asuna said quickly, then added more thoughtfully, "But why are you here? Isn't this like a hacker group?"

"My wife and daughter both work for QED. And it seems I have some talent as an investigator, so I sometimes do some work for them. Though this time is different."

"That would make you Sakuma Machiko?" Asuna said to the woman who defended him.

"Correct, I am the 'Remote Public Face of QED," the former model agreed.

"What does that mean?" Kazuto asked, "Is that like Terashima-san?"

"Ryoko-chan interacts with customers who come here," Machiko agreed, "And I go out to meet customers in the field."

"And with that, it sound like we should get to introductions," Akira interrupted.

"So, you apparently know about Bear, out part time investigator, and his wife BT, who does public relations," Ryusei explained, "And we knew you knew Argo, our newest investigator and apprentice hacker. And the snarker is Pi, a former CC Corp programmer."

The indicated woman nodded, her lips still turned up.

"And this is Wiseman," Ryusei indicated the youngest man of their group, looking only a few years older than Kazuto and Asuna. He was slender, and tall for a Japanese native. And he gave the teens a knowing look, which in turn made Argo smirk.

"He was part of our original group, and then worked for CC Corps as well," Kite continued.

"Finally we have our president, Helba," the last woman was also blonde and curvaceous, but unlike the rest, she was of European descent.

"And her husband, and another former CC employee, Lios. We have five other members, but three of them are out on a job, and the last two…."

"The last two are some of the missing Elder Tale players," Kazuto deduced, "And one of them is Saku… Bear's daughter."

"That's right," Akira confirmed sadly, and everyone's faces dropped, "Four of our friends…"

"Five," Lios interjected, "We just learned this morning that Alkaid is also among to vanished players."

Kite sighed, "Did anyone let Haseo and Atoli know?"

"They were the ones who told us," Pi answered.

"All the more reason to get to work," the woman called Helba finally spoke, "Over here."

She led them to bank of TVs on the right side of the room.

"We set up an internal duplicate of the Elder Tale's Yamato server," she explained, "You will design your characters here, and can use the server to get a feel for the system."

"We _borrowed_ a feature from Atharva's beta test servers," Wiseman followed them over, "So you will be able to start at level 70 with any of the crafting or role-playing subclasses. Unfortunately, the system rejected it when we tried to insert characters at a higher level than that, or if we assigned a character one of the advanced subclasses. That said, we will be able to give you equipment better than you would normally get with advanced test characters."

"We also went ahead and inserted your character models, but you can tweak them if you like," Helba added, backing away.

Ryusei and Akira settled into two of the chairs, and reached down beside to retrieve a keyboard and mouse without even looking.

"I thought Kite was your boss," Kirito said softly to Wiseman. The other man smiled and nodded.

"Kite was the hero and our field commander, but Helba was and is our general," he explained, "she was a master hacker when I was still learning. And she had access to information vital to our… quest. She started QED with Lios while most of us were still in high school and college. It is her company."

He trailed off, but watched them expectantly.

"Why are you looking at us like that?" Asuna asked, mildly uncomfortable by his attention. If he had been focused on her exclusively, she would have known how to deal with it.

"I suppose I should not expect you to remember me," he said, "I only met Kirito twice and you once, and both times were in passing. I should not expect you two to remember me out of the six thousand or so random faces."

"You are an SAO survivor," Kirito tried not to gape.

"Yes," Wiseman nodded, "I was one of those trapped in Kayaba's little petri dish. That man might not have been quite as brilliant Harald, but he made up for it with his brazenness."

"You met us in SAO?" Kirito tried to remember his face.

"We crossed paths in a dungeon on the 34th floor," Wiseman recalled, "you warned me about a pit trap. And I was there when you caught the 'Big One'. I hoped it would be an interesting event, but in the end it did not advance my understanding of the game."

"Your understanding of the game?" Asuna parroted in confusion.

"I was not particularly interested in SAO as a game," he explained, "I prefer more of a long-range support role. The lack of magic or projectiles made that difficult. I was more interested in the technology behind the game. So instead of participating in the front lines, I grinded until I had sufficient survivability, and then I explored the more unusual quests and bugs on floors 28 to 36. We were actually starting to make some headway on the game's security when you went and rendered it all moot."

"We?" both exclaimed at the same time.

"My friends decided they weren't going to let me stay trapped in a death game," Wiseman sounded somewhat embarrassed, "It took Helba, Lios, and Pi nineteen months, but they were able to crack part of Kayaba's security. They were not able to get anyone out, but they were able to send someone in."

Kazuto immediately looked over his shoulder, to where Kite and BlackRose were also holding a whispered conversation, BlackRose already working on her character.

"Them?" he hissed in surprise.

"Yes, for the last five months, they were part of that world. They never caught up in levels enough to join the front lines, but they helped me with my research. We were making some good strides on attacking SAO's security for the inside, when you defeated Heathcliff and ended the game."

"But they weren't listed," Kirito objected. Wiseman only raised an eyebrow, and the younger man spread his hands in defeat.

"Okay, but I would have remembered if someone was reported as hacking into SAO."

"They weren't," Wiseman shook his head, "Helba and the others cared for them here; another of our old team is a medical doctor. And we never advertised it for obvious reasons. Ultimately, we did nothing to resolve the issue, and we did not think certain parties would appreciate our actions."

The teens nodded. News that someone could and did jump into SAO would have caused chaos, both in game and out. Not to mention what Heathcliff might have done to the invaders.

"So it should come as no surprise that those two are ready, willing, and able to take this risk. And why they don't want you two going in, just because the government wants you to."

"Are there any SAO survivors?" Asuna raised her voice slightly, bring the rest of the room into their conversation, "Are any of _our_ people among those who vanished?"

For a few seconds nobody answered. Then Argo took a step close.

"Yeah," the other young woman confirmed, "We have confirmed seventy two SAO survivors are among the missing Elder Tale players. Including Thinker and Yulier. Even though MMO Tomorrow usually focuses on VR games, they were going to do a special on the new release of the oldest active MMORPG."

"Then we have a reason to go in," Kirito said, "We saved their lives, back in SAO. Directly, not like everyone else."

He let go unsaid the philosophy that, if you saved a person's life, you were responsible for that person. Across the room Bear nodded, familiar with the sentiment; it was how he got his daughter.

"Then you better get to work," Wiseman told them. They took the chairs next to Kite and BlackRose. They logged into the game, not commenting on how they already had accounts set up with their normal user names and passwords. Once they were connected, they were funneled directly into the character creation screen, where avatars matching their physical appearances stared back. Glancing over, they saw that BlackRose's character looked nothing like Akira.

BlackRose was taller than Akira, though of a similar build. She had deeply tanned skin and short, spikey, pink hair. BlackRose's eyes and nose were also a little sharper, and said eyes were deep red.

Since Akira and Ryusei were still whispering, Kazuto and Asuna began to focus on their own avatars. The pulled up the net browser, and began to look up the classes, sub classes, skills, and recommended builds in Elder Tale.

"What are you thinking?" Kazuto asked his lover.

"Swashbuckler," she said, "With a rapier and buckler, I should be able to combine aspects of the Fencer and Gladiator builds. Although…"

She hit a toggle, and her avatar's ears extended by about five inches.

"And chef for your Sub class," he prompted with a small grin.

"Only if you take Fisherman," she shot back, "Are you planning to make a Sword Dancer Assassin?"

"That seems like the best dual weapon build," he agreed.

"We'll have lots of swords, then," Akira told them, "Since I'm going Paladin."

"Paladin's not on the list," Asuna frowned.

"It is on the European server," BlackRose explained, "They have that instead of Samurai. And thanks to our friends, we can actually create characters from any of the alternate classes on the other servers. I'm thinking with a good pair of equipment load outs I can manage both Vanguard and Champion builds."

A quick search revealed that the Vanguard used broad swipes of a two-handed sword to draw lots of aggro from multiple enemies, while the Champion could force one enemy to only attack the Paladin so long as the Paladin did the same.

"So we have a melee DPS," Ryusei looked at Kazuto, "A melee DPS with some tanks skills, and a melee focused tank."

"So are you going to make a dual weapon fighter as well?" Kazuto asked, remembering what he had read about the original Kite PC.

"After a fashion," the older man smiled, "We need a healer, so I am looking at the Twin Shield Cleric build. With the Tracker sub class I can avoid agro and keep an eye on the mobs."

"You, playing support?" Akira teased her husband.

"I always did when we didn't have a WaveMaster," he reminded her, "And even if we did, and she was Mistral. And the reason they set up this server for us is not just so we can practice the game, but so we can test our teamwork and party dynamics. If it doesn't work then I can switch to a Bard or something."

It turned out their party dynamics worked fine. The switching technique Kirito and Asuna learned in SAO helped them manage each other's' skill cool downs, without stealing aggro from BlackRose. Kite was able to keep them healthy and call out the monsters positions. They had a little trouble with some physical resistant monsters, but the Paladin and Cleric had buffs to get them through those fights.

So they logged out, and handed the system over to QED to move their characters over and hack them some better items. Before he sat down, Wiseman stopped Ryusei.

"You need to go in back. _She_ is here. She wants to talk to you first. Helba is already in with her."

"Okay," Ryusei nodded. Then he looked Kazuto and Asuna, and said, "We will be back shortly."

"Actually," Wiseman interrupted, "She wants to see them, too."

Both Saitous looked surprised.

"Alright, then I guess you two should come with us."


	3. MACHINE INTERFACE

**|MACHINE INTERFACE|**

Ryusei led his wife and the younger couple to one of the doors at the back of the room. Inside were another seven recliners, one of them already occupied by Helba. But what caught Asuna and Kazuto's attention was the Nerve Gears, one on Helba's head and one next to each of the remaining chairs.

"Don't worry," Akira noticed their attention, "These are custom rigs with more horsepower and without the ability to kill."

"They are what we used to enter SAO," Ryusei added, "But we never died in the game, so we don't know what would have happened."

"Your boss is waiting," Asuna said, her voice unusually yet understandably terse. The youngest woman settled into the chair next to Helba, and lifted the interface helmet onto her head. The other three quickly followed suit.

Each experienced a buzzing sound and a flash of color as the machine connected directly to their neural impulses. As their vision cleared, they stood in an empty, ancient city. But before they could take in the world around them, Asuna and Kirito noticed they were back in their SAO garb; she in her Knight of the Blood Oath uniform, and he in his random collection of black and dark grey items. But they also recognized they did not have their weapons.

They recognized Akira, no BlackRose, from the Elder Tales avatar they had seen. In the virtual world, her pink-haired, immodestly garbed avatar was the tallest of them. And knowing who she was, that meant the short youth in bright orange leather armor with green hair had to be Kite.

"Where are we?" Kirito asked, looking around at the stone street and buildings, and the canals. He could smell the salt spray of the sea water flowing past.

"Mac Anu," Kite answered, "Δ Root Town, the starting city of The World."

"I thought The World was shut down," Asuna remembered, also taking in their surroundings.

"Technically, it is indefinitely off line for QA and upgrades," BlackRose rolled her eyes at the corporate spin doctoring, "But thanks to Helba, we were able to preserve Mac Anu and the Lost Zones. And we had better get going."

Kite nodded. He gestured, and a window popped up in front of each of the teens, inviting them to join his party. They accepted, and he led them across a bridge towards a large dome. Inside the building were a set of three thick, rune marked, concentric gold rings, the smallest almost 3 meters in diameter and the largest just over four meters across. They floating above the ground, each rotating a different direction. Kite held up his hand, and four glowing rectangles appeared in front of the rings. The Twin Blade swiped his hand, and characters appeared on them. He gestured again, and the word in the second box changed. He repeated the process six more times, changing the third and fourth boxes as well. Then he plunged his hand through the interface to touch the outermost golden ring. As reality splintered around them, Asuna and Kirito were able to read the words in the boxes.

**Δ  
Hidden  
Forbidden**

**Holy Ground**

The world reformed around them, and they stood on an older marble bridge. Behind them the path was broken, and looking over the edge all they could see was a seemingly bottomless mist. On the far side of the bridge was an island in the lake of fog. On the island was an ancient, western style cathedral. Not hesitating, as if they had seen it countless times before, Kite and BlackRose marched towards the church, leaving the awed teens scrambling to catch up.

The cathedral felt smaller on the inside, with only eight rows of pews, starting just inside the door and leading to an ornate altar. Scraps of chain littered the floor around it, and the marble slab had eight words inscribed on it, words which appeared to have been worn down until they were nearly illegible.

Standing beside the pedestal was a woman in an ornate white dress with deep blue accents and a thick black belt. It might have been conservative; the skirt was floor length, and the sleeves were full extended past her wrists. But the bodice had a large cutout showing her midriff, and a plunging neckline that displayed most of her impressive cleavage. She had long blonde hair, but most of her face was covered by a gold and ruby visor that connected to her miter.

"Is she here, Helba?" Kite asked, and the woman nodded with a smirk. As if waiting for the question, another woman floated down from the shadows above the altar.

She was shorter than Helba, but taller than the rest of them. Her face was plain, not unattractive but she would not have been noticed next to Asuna or most of the female members of QED. She wore a dress of light, white cotton or silk, which covered her entire body except for her hands, head, and bare feet. But the thin material let enough of the light behind her through to show a modest yet feminine figure. Her long, flowing hair was white, or silver, or a shimmering mix of constantly shifting colors. Under her chin, an infinity symbol in white gold was clipped to her dress. In contrast to her normal features, she had the sharpest, most dazzling, ice blue eyes Kirito had ever seen. The swordsman had focused on the new woman's appearance to try to distract himself from the other thing.

Power. The woman radiated power like nothing either teen had ever felt before. They had fought most of the level bosses in SAO, including the enhanced quarter bosses. Both had nearly died fighting The Gleam Scythe. Asuna had been there when Kirito had forced Heathcliff to reveal himself as most powerful entity in SAO. They had fought with and against system proclaimed gods in ALO. And none of them came close to the majesty, the divinity radiating from the white woman. She could have unmade them with but a thought, destroying the avatars and the human minds that inhabited them. Both lovers struggled not to kneel.

Then the effect broke as BlackRose stomped noisily to the front of the church and cuffed the unknown woman in the back of the head.

"Ow," she proclaimed, and then pouted at the pink-haired woman, "What was that for, BlackRose-baa-san?"

"Don't 'baa-san' me, Aura," the fierce Heavy Blade snapped, "What was with the extra strength goddess act? Are you trying to scare them off?"

"Kite did say he did not want them involved," the now named Aura reminded her, "But mainly, I thought showing off would make the exposition that was sure to follow my arrival easier."

"Exposition?" Asuna frowned.

"Who is she?" Kirito asked cautiously, "Another member of QED?"

"In a manner of speaking." Kite answered with a small smile, "This is Aura, daughter of Harald Hoerwick, Emma Wielant, and Morganna Mode Gone. The guardian of the network. The world's first true AI."

"I prefer cyber sentient," Aura said serenely.

"True AI?" Kirito asked excitedly, "You mean she is bottom-up?"

"Top-down, bottom-up, such labels don't apply to me."

"You called her Harald Hoerwick's daughter," Asuna noted, less interested in the technical issues, "What does that mean? Harald was the creator of 'The World', wasn't he?"

"The game, 'Fragment', was just a means to Harald's end," Helba said quietly, "He needed a way for Morganna to scan thousands of Human minds. The fact that it was based upon 'The Epitaph of Twilight' and thus exposed the players to Emma's works was a benefit in Harald's mind, but was secondary."

"I can see why you said this would require exposition," Asuna addressed the AI goddess directly, "I am totally lost at this point."

"Harald Hoerwick was a genius and a computer savant," Helba continued, "But the true love of his life was Emma Wielant. Emma was a writer, and a poet. He created the TomeLock system for her, to protect her works. But though he loved her, and they were close, Emma loved another man. Harald was able to accept that, he was happy just to be close to her, or so he said. But when she died in a car accident, and her site was shut down before he could recover it, Harald changed. He became obsessed with preserving Emma's legacy. To do so, he secretly incorporated the 'Epitaph of Twilight' into the story of the game he was working on. And more importantly he built the Black Box."

She paused, and both Aura and Kite gave her supportive looks.

"The Black Box was a work of madness and genius," Helba continued, "He digitized both his own and Emma's DNA, and created a system to create a true AI, a living computer program based on their genetic code and working the same way a Human mind does. The name of that system, that 'top-down' AI was Moganna Mode Gone."

"Mother did her job, diligently at first," Aura picked up the tale, "Creating a number of incomplete children. Some collapsed on their own, while others were deleted by the admins of 'Fragment' and the game it evolved into, 'The World'. But as she continued her work, Mother grew more advanced as well. She realized that once I was born, she would shut down. That went against her survival routines, but she could not countermand her purpose."

"Which is where Tsukasa came in," BlackRose suddenly added, "Morganna figured out she could halt Aura's growth by tying it to a single, anti-social player. So it would seem like she was still doing her job, but really wasn't. Since Aura had to be connected to that player all the time, Morganna trapped Tsukasa in the game. Problem was, some people began to notice and tried to get close to Tsukasa. She… or he I guess at that point, rejected them at first, but a few kept trying…"

"So there was a player trapped in the World," Kirito tried to keep his doubts out of his voice, "Literally, trapped but active?"

"Tsukasa lived in 'The World'," Aura confirmed, "He experienced not just sight and hearing, but also smell and touch. But he had no need to eat, and so had no sense of taste when he used consumables."

"Who was it?" Asuna asked, her voice concerned.

"Misono An," Kite answered, "Though I suppose back then she was Shoji An. A girl with a bad life, who tried to escape into the game, even playing a character of a different gender to distance her two selves."

BlackRose snarled suddenly, her hands balling up into fists.

"Do you not like her?" Kirito prompted carefully.

"Huh?" BlackRose looked surprised and then realized her reaction, "An is a good friend, she's one of us. A member of QED, I mean. The little trip down memory lane just made me think about her biological father."

"Not a good person?" Asuna offered.

"That man was a waste of flesh," the pinkette growled, "He tormented and degraded An, and when he was drunk he would even beat her. The only positive thing I can say about that vile man is that at least he did not sexually abuse her. Do you know, that after she left and became Ryo's ward, he actually tried to blackmail them?"

"So this An in Bear's daughter, the one trapped in Elder Tale," Kirito mused.

"Along with her wife, Mariko," BlackRose nodded. Then she blushed and said, "I mean Subaru."

Kite's eyes widened as he realized they had been using Tsukasa's real name. Helba just shook her head.

"Anyway," the Twin Blade said quickly, "After Bear tracked Tsukasa down in the real world, he, Subaru, Mimiru, and a few others were able to make connections with Tsukasa, and in time were able convince him to log out."

"That, in turn, enabled me to awaken," Aura said, "But before she was shut down, Mother took action. She activated the Cursed Wave event, the primary conflict of the 'Epitaph of Twilight', and divided her consciousness amongst the eight antagonists, the Phase of the Wave."

"I first met Aura while she was on the run from Skeith," Kite said, "My friend Orca was one of the top players, while I was a newbie he was introducing to The World. Aura wanted to recruit Orca and give him a special weapon to fight the Phases. But Skeith Data-Drained Orca and Aura first, putting Orca into a coma and splitting Aura in three, so the weapon fell to me instead."

"Which is where I came in," BlackRose asserted, "My brother had also been put into a coma, so I went into The World looking for answers. I met Kite, and realized we were both trying to save the trapped players. We teamed up, and tracked down the eight Phases."

"We were not alone," Kite reminded his wife, "Helba, Wiseman, and many other helped us."

"After the Phases were defeated, and my fragments reunited, I was able to truly be born," Aura concluded, "And I released the trapped players."

Kite turned from the teens to Aura with a determined look.

"That aside, why did you want to see us, Aura?" he asked firmly.

"I have been examining the code of Elder Tale," the AI answered, "And like Sword Art, it appears the last two expansions both pilfered portions of phase 2 of the Black Box."

All five of the Humans gaped at the statement.

* * *

"What is our status?" Lios leaned over their chairs to glance at the screens of both Wiseman and Argo.

"Never seen anything like this, boss man," the SAO survivor answered, "Whoever is behind this is top tier. We're getting hit from seven different vectors, and each hack has a different signature."

"They're past the hardware firewall," Bear reported anxiously.

"Reboot it and cycle the passwords and ports," Wiseman instructed, a pillar of calm in storm of running and typing. BT gave her husband a mug of coffee, and a soda to Argo.

"How much longer do we have?" Lios asked.

"I am preparing to launch counter measures," Wiseman said.

"Do not," a new voice emerged from the speakers. The next instant, Aura's face appeared in a window on each of their monitors.

"She means no harm," Aura informed them, "And it would not be good to antagonize or harm her. If you allow her in, I will speak to her."

And then she was gone, leaving the Humans to look at each other in confusion.

"What do we do?" Argo prompted.

"Do what she says," Lios answered.

* * *

"Phase 2 of the Black Box?" BlackRose prompted, "What's that?"

"Father had a deep interest in anthroposophy…" Aura began.

"What?" everyone except Helba exclaimed.

"The study of the nature of consciousness and the spiritual aspect of thought," Helba explained. Then she trailed off, looking mildly uncomfortable.

"Are any of you familiar with the Limit of Questions?" Aura asked them, her voice more subdued.

"Isn't that from quantum physics?" Asuna frowned thoughtfully, "something about thoughts effecting space and time."

"I will put it another way," the goddess considered, "Since you are more familiar with computers. You are of course aware that computers can run multiple programs simultaneously. But what happens if you run too many programs at once?"

"They start to slow down," Kite answered,

"And if you add more programs on top of that?"

"Glitches," Kirito said thoughtfully, "incomplete loads, and data from one program being used by another."

"And if you start still more programs?"

"Something will crash," Kite offered.

"Maybe even the OS," Kirito nodded.

"And if you continue this repeatedly?"

"You can overheat your system," BlackRose answered this time, "Even burn out something."

"So then…" Asuna mused.

"The Limit of Questions postulates that regions of space, bounded by gravity wells like planets, are analogous to a computer, and the thoughts of sentient beings, called empathions, are the programs running on it. The 'Limit' in the Limit of Questions is the number of sentient minds a planet can sustain."

"So if the Limit is exceeded,,," Kite prompted.

"As the Limit is approached, there is a break down," Helba took over, "Increases in violent actions and mental illness. And if the Limit is exceed, it would cause a collapse in local space, not unlike a gravity singularity."

"But that is all a theory right," Asuna insisted quickly, "and from what I remember, a pretty unpopular and controversial one."

But even as she objected, she glanced at Kirito and both of them thought of Death Gun, three young men who had rejected the real world and become murderers. Two could be attributed to their being SAO survivors. But not the third.

"It is difficult to prove such a thing," Aura gave a slight shrug, "But there is math to support it, and its proponents point out the increases in crime and terrorism as potentially caused by the Limit. Even if it is not true, Father believed it was true, and took steps to prevent it."

"'The World'," Kite said, "and the players trapped inside."

"Father posited that by shifting empathions into a virtual space, their impact on the real world could be reduced or even negated."

"Harald and Emma both believed that the best way to prevent the Limit from being reached was to connect people's minds to virtual worlds," Helba added, "And he hoped in time to take it even further. If everyone plugged in when they slept, not only would the Limit be avoided, but they could learn or have mental illnesses treated through directed dreaming. Non-physical jobs, like accountants and programmers could also do their work entirely in virtual spaces."

"That is the basis for phase 2 of the Black Box, what Mother tapped in to, to prevent my birth," Aura resumed, "And there is one more step, that even Aunt Helba does not know."

The other woman in white looked unsettled at that.

"Father considered the possibility that it would not be possible to shift enough empathions into virtual spaces, whether due to cost, or disbelief and resistance. The final phase of the Black Box, was to focus enough thoughts and belief into 'The World', so that instead of being a virtual world, it would become a true alternate reality. So that, if the Limit was reached, 'The World' and any players inside would continue on. It was to be a life raft to save Humanity, at least in part."

"Wait, you said both SAO and Elder Tale stole elements of the Black Box," Asuna remembered, "Does that mean…"

"We have no way to know why Kayaba Akihiko did that," Aura said, "That man was a genius, possibly even smarter than Father…"

Helba snorted loudly at that.

"… but he was not a computer savant like Father. He did not even take any computer classes in college until after he attended a lecture by Father. He used both the FMD data and the Black Box in developing the Nerve Gear and Sword Art. Still, the interface he created was more comprehensive."

"So you think Kayaba was trying to prevent the Limit of Question with SAO?" Kirito mused, "Maybe by trapping us inside, he hoped to create an alternate reality like you said Harald was…"

"I never met him," Helba said, "Nor do I know what he talked to Harald about. You met him in that game, you would have a better chance of answering your own question."

"He claimed he wasn't fully sure why he did it," the young man remembered, "But he always dreamed of making Aincrad fly. If Harald's system really can use people's thoughts to make a game into something more, then that would have granted his wish. Even if he did not believe in the Limit of Questions."

"So what does this have to do with Elder Tale?" BlackRose asked, trying to change the subject away from the death game.

"That is the oldest game online, and has the largest subscriber base," Aura answered, "And it is based upon the existing world. If phase 2 omega were to occur, it would seem to be prime target."

"If the players really vanished…" Helba started.

"What do you mean?" Kirito interrupted, "Are you saying they may not have?"

"We have two working theories," Kite answered, "Some of us thought it was unlikely that they literally vanished into thin air…"

"Though more likely than it was ten minutes ago," BlackRose asided smugly, letting both teens know what her opinion was.

"Instead," Kite pretended to not hear his wife's comment, "we think it is more likely that whoever was behind this was able to hack the cameras…"

"Even the ones Aura, Helba, and Wiseman were not able to crack," the Heavy Blade noted.

"And that either this is some giant trick, or a mass kidnapping, or that the flash on the video was some sort of brainwashing, some image or signal that made the players just walk out."

"That does sound more likely," Asuna admitted.

"What do you think, Aura-san?" Kirito asked.

"Though we have picked apart the client side code," she told him, "Even I have not been able to gain access to those servers. Or rather, I can't without going through the game and the back door we have opened. And I am not sure what that would do to me. That portion of the Black Box was designed for a Human, not a Cyber Sentient. And they have made… changes."

The uncertainty in her voice seemed to visibly frighten the veterans of The World.

"What's our next step?" Kirito prompted after a few seconds.

"If you two are still in," Kite's voice said he was hoping they had reconsidered, "We go back into the den. The others will tie us to the chairs. We have additional cameras in there on an independent network. Everyone else will leave, but will guard the doors so no-one can get in or out. Then we log in, and see if we vanish, or if the connected cameras get hacked and maybe we try to leave."

Kirito looked at his lover, who nodded with a determined grin.

"You haven't scared us off yet," the younger man announced, "So are we going to do this right now?"

"No," Helba answered this time, "We have a few more adjustments to make. You four should make any arrangements you need, have a good lunch, go to a hotel for a few hours if you are so inclined. We will meet back here at three PM to launch the operation."

The four younger Humans nodded. And then all five logged out, leaving Aura in the cathedral.

"Well, little one," she said to the supposedly empty pews, "What are you going to do?"

A slender form stepped into the light, silhouetted by long ebony locks.


	4. QUEST PREPARTION

**|QUEST PREPARTION|**

"It might be a little early," Ryusei said once they were by in the material world, "But if you are interested, we will take you to lunch."

Both men glanced at the wall clock, which told them it was still a few minutes before eleven AM.

"Are we going _there_?" Akira prompted, her eyes sparkling. Her husband nodded. She pumped a fist.

"We don't want to impose," Asuna said politely.

"We can't let you pay for us," Kazuto insisted.

"Don't worry about it," Akira countered, "We'll write it off as a business lunch and foist the cost onto the Virtual Division. Besides, you don't want to miss this."

"Then why not?" Kirigaya asked his girlfriend, his expression just a little vindictive.

"Sure," the chestnut-haired beauty nodded, know her boyfriend was frequently annoyed by that bureau.

"Shall we go then?" Ryusei gestured towards the door.

"Where are we going?" Asuna asked.

"It's a surprise," Akira said spritely.

It was warm enough to be nearly uncomfortable, but they walked the few blocks. Asuna and Kazuto looked around, trying to figure out where the older couple was leading them. Both teens were surprised when the older couple turned into one of the most popular and exclusive restaurants in the ward.

"Here?" Kirigaya prompted, then looked at his girlfriend, "Didn't you say this place has a two to three week waiting list."

"It does," she confirmed, then addressed the older pair suspiciously, "Did you plan this out that far in advance?"

"No, we didn't plan for anything like this," Ryusei reminded them, "We did not even want you involved."

"Well, if you don't have a reservation, we won't be able to get in," the girl said confidently but without recrimination. Akira just smirked back at her. Ryusei opened the door, and gestured for the younger pair to enter first. As they entered, the host regarded the teens imperiously. But when the older couple followed, he smiled broadly.

"Saitou-san-tachi," he acknowledged the pair, to the surprise and annoyance of the other people waiting in the lobby.

"New customers?" he glanced at Asuna and Kazuto.

"Nope," Akira shook her head slightly, "I guess you'd call them new recruits."

"Ah," he nodded, "table for four then?"

"Yes," Ryusei confirmed. The man bowed slightly, collected four menus from his stand, and led them inside. He took them directly to an empty table.

"Okay, what the heck was that?" Asuna asked.

"Two years ago," Ryusei started. Then his expression clouded, and seemingly against his own will added, "Just before we broke into SAO…"

"This place was hacked," Akira took over before any of them could be troubled by those memories, "All their recipes were stolen, their ordering system was messed up, and the attackers left a couple of Trojan Horses behind. QED came in, we cleaned up their systems, installed a couple of high end firewalls. Then we found the ones responsible, and turned them over to the Virtual Division."

"We continue to maintain their systems and do security checks," Ryusei resumed, "So QED has a standing reservation here."

"That makes sense," Kazuto agreed, then frowned slightly, "But what was that about us being new recruits?"

"Close enough," Akira shrugged, "We usually bring clients here, and they have an unofficial dress code. But when Wiseman and I brought Argo here as part of her onboarding, when we told them she was a new member of QED, they ignored the fact that she was dressed like… well, like Argo always dresses."

They both nodded. Kazuto looked at the menu and paled for a moment. Then he smirked and looked at the older couple.

"You said we were going to charge this to Virtual Division, right?" he asked with a conspiratorial tone.

"Yup," Akira grinned.

"Great," the young man smiled broadly, the frightening prices suddenly taking on a different meaning for him.

* * *

"Rose, what is it?" Ryusei looked at his wife, accidentally using his pet name for her. The teens hadn't noticed any change in her face or voice, but her husband caught that she was taking smaller bites of her food than usual, and chewing longer than necessary. Asuna might not know the clue Ryusei caught, but she could not help but be jealous. Her initial interactions with Kirito were through the exaggerated filter SAO placed on emoting, so she was still learning to read him in the real world.

"I was just thinking about what Aura said," Akira answered, without admonishing him for using the term of endearment in front of the younger couple.

"And?" Ryusei prompted.

"It's about that 'Limit of Questions' thing," she continued slowly, "and about philosophy and religion. You know those ideas, 'can God make a rock so heavy that he cannot lift it?', and 'reality is just the dream of God'. What if that is the 'Limit of Questions'?

"Can God have a dream so complex it would force him to wake up?" Asuna said softly.

"Exactly," the older woman agreed.

"And?" Kazuto shrugged, "Does that change anything? I mean, what if the analogy about computers is not really an analogy? What if the world is just a computer simulation, and we are all living in the database, being used as batteries? Maybe if there are too many of us, the computer really won't be able to handle it and will crash."

Ryusei smiled slightly, and then put on his best wooden expression and muttered dully, "Whoa."

Both men chuckled.

"Are you making fun of me, Saitou Ryusei?" Akira asked, her eyes and voice dangerous.

"Of course not, Rose," this time he used the name intentionally. But after a second, he continued, "Kazuto is making fun of you. I'm just acknowledging his movie reference."

The teens could not help but laugh, and after a few moments, the other pair joined in. After it died down, Ryusei reached for his soft drink, and as he took a drink, Akira elbowed him lightly in the side.

* * *

"So, I was thinking about the Limit, too," Asuna announced as she finished her meal.

"What about it?" Kazuto asked.

"I was thinking about the Singularity."

"Yeah, getting crushed by a black hole is enough to get anyone thinking," Akira agreed with a shudder.

"Not the Limit's singularity," younger woman countered, "About the AI Singularity."

Both men pursed their lips thoughtfully.

"Okay, I'll bite," Akira said, "What about it?"

"Well, Aura is the only free-willed sentient AI, right?" her voice was naturally dubious, considering her adopted daughter.

"So far as we know," Ryusei confirmed, "And both Helba and Aura keep an eye out for that."

"Which means Aura has not reproduced like wildfire, copying herself until she outnumbered Humans and filled every computer connected to the Net, like most AI scientists claim she would."

No-one argued or interrupted, so Asuna continued.

"But if the Limit is real, or even if it is just that Aura believes it, that makes sense, right? Because the Net is not one of those virtual spaces she mentioned. Or even if it is, I guess. So if she just spun off a huge number child AIs, that would bring us that much closer to the Limit. Or put us over it. And even if she just created a handful of children, all it would take was one to disagree about the Limit and we would all get to watch a computer crash from the inside."

"Okay, but what does that all mean?" Akira asked, as Ryusei flagged down their server.

"Maybe nothing," the younger woman admitted, "I was just thinking it stands in favor of what your friends told us. You might trust them, but we are still new here."

"So what next?" Kazuto asked, looking at the wall clock and seeing they still had over three hours, "are you going to head back?"

"No, we are going to go to a hotel nearby and have a bunch of life-affirming sex."

Ryusei and the younger couple all blushed at Akira's brutal honesty.

"You two should probably change into more comfortable clothing," she continued, "In case we spend hours strapped to a chair playing an MMO for no good reason. Anything else you want to do is up to you. We will probably head back to QED at about a quarter to three. If you get there sooner, Ryoko will let you in this time."

"Alright, we will see you then," Kirito confirmed.

* * *

Their coupling was unusually calm. The wife, usually the aggressor, forced her husband to take the lead. He carefully stimulated her in every way he knew she coveted. He brought her to the height of passion, before he gave into his feelings and allowed himself to join with her. Even once they were done, she curled up facing him, and held tightly on to him.

"It's not too late to back out," he whispered to her.

"No, it was too late all those years ago, when you took the second Bracelet," she said. He pulled her closer to him, and gently stroked her hair with his other hand.

* * *

Their coupling was frantic and awkward. Thought they had not hesitated to make love in the other world, since awakening, they had held back. Various fears had kept them from sharing a bed in this world. But now they were taking another risk, plunging into another uncertain circumstance, this time of their own free will. That choice, and the greater fears behind it, shred the wall between them, and for the second time, they gave themselves to each other for the first time. Afterwards, they spooned tightly, relishing in the warmth they had missed from the last few months. But still, he felt a shiver run through her.

"It's not too late to back out," he whispered to her.

"Maybe, but we aren't going to," she said firmly. He nodded, and then kissed her neck gently.

* * *

As they met in front of QED, each couple thought that the other looked more tired than they had after lunch. Akira gave Asuna a knowing smile, and the younger woman blushed. Ryusei politely ignored that, and swiped his access card.

"None of you are having any second thoughts?" Helba asked when they entered the den. None of them answered.

"Alright, then let's get you set up," BT announced, lifting a bundle of silk rope.

* * *

"Ready," Wiseman's voice echoed around the room that now held only the four heroes. They nodded.

"Login in three. Two. One."


	5. LOG IN

**|LOG IN |**

On Wiseman's cue, each clicked they button to log in with their chosen avatar. They were greeted by the image of a weedy looking man in loose, ill-fitting, off-white robes. He looked at the screen, and as he spoke, his words also appeared in a text box on the bottom of their screens.

"It has been 240 years since the second [World Faction] brought you Adventurers into our world," he said, "Now the third [World Faction] has occurred, changing the fates of both Adventurers and the People of the Land. What will this mean for you, I wond…"

He was cut off midsentence as the screen flashed, brighter than should have been possible. Brighter than starting into the sun or a spotlight, their vision was washed white. Still blinded they felt a sensation of falling. But sideways, not down. Time did not seem to have meaning anymore, they could have been plummeting for a minute or for a year.

Then it stopped. No sense of slowing or impact, just that they were no longer moving. And no longer tied to the comfortable recliners. It was warmer, though not as warm as it had been outside QED's office. A gentle breeze washed over them, a natural wind with the scent of leaves and a hint of the sea. And they were all standing. In a moment of unsettling surprise, they recognized that they had their eyes closed. Almost in unison, the four gamers unsealed their vision, and looked around.

They were on a well-worn dirt path. Except that here and there along the road there were sections of blacktop, or partially eroded yet still recognizable concrete curbs. On one side of the path, after only a dozen or so meters the field gave way to a thick forest. And on the other side the grass extended for as far as they could see, but it was from that direction that the salty ocean air was wafting.

Kirito and Asuna quickly glanced each other over; nothing about them had changed except for their clothing. Which was slightly unexpected to the teens, the QED team had done a remarkable job of reproducing their appearances in Elder Tale's character creation engine. But the system had its limits and unlike SAO, their avatars had not been perfect reproductions.

But as the couple faced one another, their faces were the same as that had been in the original world, and in the game where they met. Except for Asuna's now elfin ears. Their heights and builds were also a match. Their business casual clothing had been replaced.

Asuna was wearing a pair of skin-tight white leather pants, and a matching half-jacket. Under the jacket she had an untucked, long-sleeved red silk shirt and a vest of white chainmail with a red celtic cross over her bust. Her hands were uncovered, but over her pants had a pair of red leather calf-high boots, with white steel accent plates. A rapier with an octagonal hilt rested on her left hip, and a white buckler with a red celtic knot was strapped to her left forearm.

Kirito, as he was wont to do, was clad in dark grey and black equipment, and was starting to regret it under the warm afternoon sun. He had on a charcoal colored cotton shirt and breaches, with jet black leather breastplate and heavy black leather duster. He had a black silk harness over the top of the long jacket, holding his two longswords across his back and a black metal pauldron on his left shoulder. He wore a pair of short boots, almost like black high-top sneakers, except with leather straps instead of laces and hardened leather soles instead of rubber. One of his swords had a crosspiece like a stylized lightning bolt, while the other was an intricately carved wolf's head.

Unlike their younger counterparts, BlackRose and Kite had appearances that were both familiar and not. They did not look like their 'The World' avatars, the approximated 'Elder Tale' versions, or their real world selves. Instead each looked like an amalgamation of the former and the latter. BlackRose still had the sharp, strong eyes of her game self, but instead of deep red, their color was that of Akira's soft grey orbs. She had the same bright pink, spiky hair, but in place of BlackRose's hawkish nose, she had Akira's button nose. Kite could not help but think that it like the best possible combination of the two versions of his wife. Likewise, his appearance was mostly that of Kite, but with Ryusei's slightly broader nose and rounder chin.

BlackRose's body was partially covered in heavy crimson metal plates, but outside of a fantasy world, it would not have been considered functional armor. While it protected more than her gear in 'The World' had, it still left large section of skin exposed across her belly, upper arms, and upper legs. The suit was the steel equivalent of a belly shirt with a slightly plunging neckline and hot pants, with heavy pauldrons, gauntlets, and thigh high boots. And where it did cover, the armor was tightly fitted around her breasts and butt. Rather than a helmet, a band of the red metal covered her forehead and temples. Across her back was a giant sword, from point to pommel maybe an inch less than her total height, and almost as wide across as her torso. One side of the blade was smooth, while the other had a fine yet visible serration. The thick fuller down the middle of the blade had the same red color as her armor.

Kite was wearing a shirt and greaves of heavy orange chain over a light layer of white silk padding. A series of white metal plates down the front called to mind a priest's stole. His armor also had white plates over his shoulders, lighter than BlackRose's pauldrons but heavier than the single one Kirito wore. He also had orange leather gloves and boots. The ginger hat perched atop his blue-green hair had a similar shape to the one his original avatar wore, but lacked the metal emblem or the side flaps. A small dagger and hammer hung from the front of his belt, while two blue metal tubes with what looked handles on one end were attached to loops on the back.

"Is this real?" BlackRose finally broke the silence.

"Beef bourguignon with ketchup," Kite answered in English, apparently a non sequitur. But his wife calmed slightly, Kirito looked confused, and Asuna frowned at them.

"Was that a Superman reference?" she asked.

"How did you know that?" BlackRose smirked at the other woman.

"My older brother," Asuna said sheepishly, "He is a big fan of the character."

"The same older brother who's Nerve Gear you 'borrowed' to play SAO?" Kirito prompted, "The same older brother I've never met or seen pictures of?"

"Drop it," the heiress said sharply. Her lover kept his grin, but obligingly shut up.

"This is really weird," BlackRose changed the subject, taking half a step forward.

"What do you mean?" Kirito asked, moving his arm experimentally.

"My body feels off," the pinkette noted, "it feels like I'm on short stilts, and have on a shirt with sleeves that are too long."

Asuna skipped sideways, and then frowned in confusion.

"I feel like I'm crouching down a little," Kite noted, walking in a slow circle.

"Maybe because your avatars are not the same height as your original bodies?" Kirito suggested, "I don't feel anything like that, but I'm also the same height as before."

"I never felt like that during a Full Dive," BlackRose countered.

"But this isn't a Full Dive," Asuna mused, "The Nerve Gears or the games might have something to filter the sensation. And whatever or wherever this is, doesn't do that."

"We better get used to it then," Kite noted, starting to do some light stretches.

"Speaking of getting used to it," Asuna nodded, "is this still a game? Wiseman said he was going to make sure we had gear, but I don't see backpacks or anything. Do we have an inventory here?"

"Good question," BlackRose had drawn her heavy blade, taken a few steps away from the others, and was swinging in cautiously.

Kirito extended two fingers on his right hand and then swiped them across his body. When nothing happened, he repeated the gesture with his left.

"I don't seem to be able to get to the menu," the swordsman started the phrase sounding frustrated, but jumped as he said the last word. He reached up as if touching a screen the others could not see.

"Menu," he repeated casually. Then with a frown said more forcefully, "Menu."

"Well, that's good," he said after shutting it again, "You have to actually want to see the menu when you say it. It would be awkward if it just popped up in a restaurant or something."

"Hmmm," Kite stopped moving, and his face scrunched in concentration.

"You don't even have to say it," the orange Cleric offered a moment later, "Just focus your attention on your Ajna Chakra and think about wanting to see the menu."

"Ajna Chakra?" Kirito and Asuna echoed.

"The middle of your forehead," BlackRose explained, "You know, where your third eye would be."

For a few moments they practiced called the menu, and manipulating it both by hand and mentally. They found that it was a little easier and faster to hit the buttons on the floating screen, but the convenience of doing so without gesturing was undeniable.

"Hopefully with practice it will be just as fast to think at it, as it is to press the buttons," Kirito announced a few moments later.

"It's too bad we can't go directly into the sub menus," Asuna said.

"Maybe we can?" BlackRose frowned.

"But when I said 'inventory', it didn't appear before," the brunette countered.

"But you were not trying to call up the screen," the older girl shot back, "Inventory. Equipment. Party. Skills. Guild. Okay, nothing for that one yet, either."

"Equipment," Kite mimicked his wife. Then, after looking at the screen for a moment, his eyes widened.

"What is it, Kite?" Asuna was the only one who noticed his reaction, their respective partners now looking at the stats of the equipment they had been given. He did not answer, but instead slipped his hands into the cylinders on his back, tightening his hands on the grips. The metal closed around her wrists, and the tubes disconnected from his belt. As they did, modest hexagonal shields grew out of the bracers, the same blue color in the center and lightening to cyan at the edges. He brought them into guard position, and a disconnected, segmented, green energy wing unfurled from each of the shields' six sides. BlackRose's jaw dropped, but neither of the SAO survivors could tell why.

"Kite, is that…"

"Twilight Aegis," he said, regretting that they could not see his screen, "times two. There is no level requirement, but the stats appear to be in line with the other level 70 large shields I saw during our test run. And no special skills on the item or my skill list. But the kicker is the flavor text."

_And the true goddess said unto them, "I have learned of your intent to plunder the vaults of my father. Know that my high priest shall bring down my wrath upon thee."_

"I thought Aura couldn't do anything here," BlackRose scowled.

"Unless it is not her," Kirito suggested, his tone cautious, "But something from the Elder Tale's kernel. A warning to us, rather than Aura being mad that Harald's code was stolen."

The thought sobered all of them. They remembered just how much they did not know about this new world.

"But how would they know?" Kite mumbled. Then he said more firmly, "I'll use them, until I have a reason not to."

"It too bad you can't show it to us," Kirito said.

"Maybe…" Kite grinned slightly. The next second, a second small screen popped up in front of each of his three allies.

"Kite has invited you to join his party," Asuna read. Then, matching his expression, they all accepted his offer. And then the glowing energy panel before him became visible to them.

"That's useful," BlackRose nodded to herself, after looking over her husband's equipment. Then she called up her own menu, on the previous blank party screen.

"HP, MP, statuses, and a chat button," she noted, "If you are going to run ops, Ryu… Kite, you might want to get used to this… Ooh."

She trailed off and grinned mischievously. But her smirk quickly faded.

"It's not working," the older girl started to pout.

"What isn't?" Asuna prompted.

"There's an 'Add all party members to friends list' button," BlackRose explained, "But even though I hit it, friend chat doesn't seem to be working."

"It could be something that did not translate over," Kite suggested, switching over to the party screen and hitting that button.

"Or maybe it has to be mutual," Kirito offered. As he initiated the chat, he heard a ding like a text message alert. She frowned at the same time, and it did not ding again. Before BlackRose could respond, he asked, "Is it working?"

"Weird," BlackRose said, clutching her head, "I can hear you both in my ears and in my head. It makes kind of an echo. I don't like it."

'Well,' the younger man directed his silent thoughts at her, 'If we don't need to push the buttons with our fingers, maybe we don't need to say our chats out loud?'

"Yeah, that works," she said aloud, but also through the telechat. Kirito felt the buzzing of the double voice, and immediately agreed with BlackRose's assessment.

"So, now what?" Asuna asked.

"Well, we aren't in town," Kite looked around, "So I think we need to figure out where we are…"

"You are in our hunting ground," an unfamiliar voice said loudly from the woods. Then Kite's Tracker skills kicked in, letting his ears pick up the rustling of branches being pushed aside and leaves shuffling underfoot. A moment later two men forced their way out of the brush onto the plain.

"And judging by the size of the flash we followed to find you," the larger of the two men continued in the same voice, "You just killed some kind of event boss that we were unaware of."

The quartet carefully controlled their reaction. Of course there had been no such boss, but they were not about to reveal that the light those two had seen was likely from their arrival in this world.

"Listen," the other man said, his cadence much higher, "Just give us whatever drops you got from the boss, and we will let you go."

They looked over the bandits. The one who spoke first was almost two meters tall and well-muscled. Under their gaze, a pop-up over his head identified him as 'Aggrezzion' in Roman characters, a level 83 Monk. His partner was a slender man of average height; an 82nd level Samurai name 'Musa4', with the first two characters in katakana. They realized the '4' was a placeholder for the kana 'shi', making him a Samurai named Musashi.

"Well," Aggrezzion drawled, "The loot, and those fancy weapons of yours, maybe?"

"You expect us to just give up our weapons?" Asuna said sharply, her hand falling to the grip of her rapier. Kirito also reached for his swords, while Kite tightened his grip on his shields. And BlackRose swung her already free blade towards them casually.

"Well," the Monk said again, smirking darkly, "I guess you fine fillies could give us all your clothing and armor instead. We need something to _compensate_ us for the XP lost to your poaching."

"How about we give you nothing and just leave?" BlackRose pointed her zweihander at him.

"Or we could just kill you and take what you want," Aggrezzion grunted, claws appearing on his fists without any sort of move to equip them.

"You think you can?" Kite fell back so he could see his three allies and both thieves, "It is four on two."

"Yes, but we have a twelve level advantage," Masu4 did not seem happy with his ally living up to his name, but drew his nodachi nevertheless.

"Enough," Aggrezzion snarled, jumping at Asuna, claws first.

"Divine Wall," a shout was forced from Kite's lips as he triggered the spell from his open menu. A golden nimbus appeared around all four members of his party.

"Knight's Gauntlet," his wife called out at the same time. The Monk stopped a moment before he hit the fencer. He turned and scowled at the Paladin.

"Fine, I'll take you first," he snarled, stalking towards her. Then he called out to his partner, "Finish off the healer so this doesn't drag out."

Musa4 nodded, but as he started to charge Kite, both Asuna and Kirito cut him off.

* * *

They were losing. Not quickly, but slowly and at this point certainly. Observing the battle, this was the only conclusion Kite could come to.

BlackRose continued to duel Aggrezzion. She had maintained Knight's Gauntlet, a Paladin skill that would give her opponent some fairly severe debuffs if he attacked anyone else, and gave her a defense boost against him. It would remain active as long as she did not target anyone else, or even hit them accidently. If she did, the skill would end and its long cool down would begin. Both were currently down a third of their HP, but that did not reflect on the fact that Aggrezzion had downed only one potion, while Kite had healed his wife almost a dozen times.

Kirito and Asuna were also holding off the Samurai. Their swordsmanship astounded both their healer and their opponent. If either one of them had been the same level as Musa4, he would already be dead. Instead their best blows barely budged his HP, while any hit he landed would plunge them into yellow. They had expertly shifted positions any time one of them took damage, giving Kite extra time to heal them while the other kept the Samurai tied up.

After the first few minutes, Kite had an epiphany. Their enemies were using skills much faster and without the pause to focus on the menu. It might have just been that the bandits had more practice in the world. But Kite speculated, if using a skill forced your to call your attack, maybe the reverse was true. That was not quite right, but he quickly determined that it would work for the skills assigned to one of their 'quick slots'. He had silently informed this teammates, and then used his strongest defensive spell to give then a second to assign two or three abilities to the bank of nine slots they currently had.

But even with that, his allies were not doing enough damage, and his MP was running low. He was contemplating other options, like tanking the Monk himself and having his three friends trying to out the Samurai first. Or just holding them both off while his wife and the younger couple escaped.

Before he could suggest a new tactic, the world around them lit up with a flash so bright they were all blinded. It was like standing right next to a lightning strike, without the thunder. The next instant, a new voice, high and clear, called out.

"Raveling Phoenix!"

Kite felt a sight rush of heat pass him. Then, as his vision started to clear, there was a ding and a new screen appeared in front of him.

**[Yui-MHCP001 has asked to join your party.]**

Not sure what was happening, but also not looking a gift ally in the mouth, he jammed the yes button. A fifth status bar appeared, for a Level 70 Summoner with full HP and moderately depleted MP.

His sight back to normal, he watched as the fire bird swung around again. This time when it passed though Kirito, Asuna, and BlackRose a chunk of their HP returned. And when it hit the thieves, their health dropped by a noticeable amount.

"Divine Dividing!" BlackRose roared as Aggrezzion flinched from the inferno. Her MP drained to zero, but the Monk's HP plummeted.

"Holy Burn," Kite spent most of his remaining mana on one of the Cleric's rare attack spells, one which duplicated the holy damage an ally had just inflicted.

"Deadly Dance," Kirito called out four times in a row, each of his swords sweeping across Musa4 twice. The skill was launched from a crouching position, so the attacks all hit low.

"Round Windmill," Asuna jumped over her lover, and rained down a series of powerful blows on the Samurai's head and shoulders, stunning him.

"Whirlpool Undine," Yui chanted as the Phoenix faded away. The water spirit appeared, pulling the bandits together in a liquid tornado. Trapped and unable to breath, their HP quickly drained.

"That's enough, Yui," Kirito walked over to the newcomer, and Kite finally stole a moment to look at their new ally.

She looked young, probably between ten and twelve. More than her apparent age, what struck Kite was how much she resembled their new friends. The girl had Asuna's eyes, nose, cheeks, and chin. Only her lips were a little thinner. But she had Kirito's coloring, their jet black hair was not uncommon for Japanese natives, but the deep grey eyes they also shared were not the norm.

Yui wore a short-sleeved, knee-length, white, robe style dress, with minor red and black highlights. Her hands and feet appeared uncovered, but her feet also did not touch the ground, probably indicating invisible shoes or boots. She held a wooden staff with gemstones in the bulbous end, one pentagonal crystal each in red, yellow, and blue.

"You don't want to finish this, Papa?" she asked curiously. But as she inquired, she also gestured. The Undine released them, with a sliver of HP remaining.

"We don't know enough yet," he told her, "And I don't want you to be a Red Player."

"Red Player?" Aggrezzion sputtered, even as BlackRose tied up his arms with the rope she found in her magic bag, "What the hell's that?"

"Wait," Musa4's complexion became white, "You're not from… that game, are you?"

"What are you going on about?" Aggrezzion glared at his partner. Musa4 was not bound, but had both BlackRose's and Asuna's blades pointed at his neck.

"You never paid attention to other games," the Samurai scolded him, "Red Player is what they called murders in Sword Art Online."

"Wait, so you idiots thought you would actually die?" the Monk seemed mildly aghast, "What, are you hermits or something?"

"What's that?" BlackRose asked evenly.

"Hermit slang for a certain group of players," Musa4 explained, "after the Catastrophe, they ran to low or mid-level zones, and avoided contact with other adventures. Most were so frightened of what might happen if they die, that they found a place the monsters were no threat, and hid."

"Pussies," Aggrezzion spat.

"Actually," Kite said smoothly, "we were on a quest before the Catastrophe, so we decided to finish it, and get used to being in the game. But we were very careful not to die, so it took us longer than expected. So how about if we cut you a deal? We don't kill you, and you tell us what you know about what is going on in the world."

"Or," BlackRose added with a nasty grin, "We could just prove it to ourselves by finishing you, and then helping ourselves to what items you drop."

Aggrezzion glared at her. But Musa4 nodded.

"For starters, just like in the game, when you are killed, you just return to the last cathedral you bonded to, with the normal XP penalty. But there's also a rumor going around; that you also lose some of your memories of the real world."

"Bullshit," the Monk complained, "I've been killed a couple of times, and never forgot anything."

"How would you know what you forgot?" Asuna asked earnestly, and his jaw snapped shut with an audible click.

"The next most important thing is about cooking," the Samurai continued, "You know how the food here has no taste? Well to get around that…."

* * *

They spent almost an hour talking to Musa4, with occasion rude asides from Aggrezzion. Kirito and BlackRose watched them carefully the entire time, as the thieves HP slowly creeped back up, and everyone's MP recovered much faster, allowing Kite to heal his party.

They learned that the NPCs were much more numerous now, and were apparently sentient, sapient, free-willed, and otherwise Human. Or Elf, or Dwarf, or whatever race the individual was. The former NPCs called themselves People of the Land, and they called the players Adventurers. And there seemed to be some debate about whether the 'Landers' really counted as people. Half related tales of Landers being kidnapped and sold as slaves did not sit well with any of them, surprisingly including Aggrezzion.

The penitent bandit told them about how players with a crafting subclass who plied their trade like they would have in the real world could produce things that had not previously existed in Elder Tale. Supposedly a stream engine was one of the first new items produced, but much more popular was the new varieties of food and apparel.

He explained that all the zones in the game were available for sale, and mentioned a rumor that some guilds had bought critical zones like the banks or cathedrals to effectively take control of major towns.

And on the topic of major towns, the teleport gates between the hub cities were not working. The Fairy Rings did work, but the end point changed every hour, and could be a town, an empty field, or the lair of a raid boss. Using them without access to a FAQ and precise time and astronomical data using the Rings amounted to throwing yourself into a random area.

Without asking, Kite's party gleaned that four months had flown by inside the game, even though they knew that only two months that had passed in the real world.

After Musa4 ran out of things to tell them, they let the bandits go. They watched carefully, with Kite actively training his Tracker skills on them until they were out of sight and earshot.

"I do not want to seem ungrateful for the save," BlackRose turned on the young girl, "But just who are you? You called him 'Papa'…"

"I am the Mental Health Care Program 001, designation Yui," the girl answered with a happy smile, "And I call Papa 'Papa', because he is my Papa. And Mama is my Mama."

The elder couple looked confused.

"Yui is an AI, originally created to monitor the psychological wellbeing of SAO's player base," Kirito started. He, Asuna, and Yui took turns explaining how she had been prevented from fulfilling her duties, escaped into the game, ended up being adopted by Kirito and Asuna, and then grew beyond her original programming. And how she had died and been resurrected in ALO.

"Huh," BlackRose grunted in awe. Then she shook her head, "Okay, I guess that is the 'who' and 'why'. What about the 'how'? Aura said she couldn't enter this world, at least not safely. So, how are you here?"

"My core code is less than a third of the size of onee-sama's," Yui offered guilelessly. The Humans were all surprised by the label Yui had applied to Aura, "And that is not even taking into account the size of our memory files. And my program is also more tightly coupled. So by tying me into a player account, I was able to safely enter this world."

"Oh," Yui suddenly exclaimed, as if remembering something she had nearly forgotten, "Your Wiseman wanted me to tell you that your bodies vanished in the flash. And your friends are coming up with cover stories, so no-one gets worried."

"All the more reason not to die," Kite said darkly. The others looked at him, not following.

"The XP penalty would be reason enough on its own," he told them, "And none of us want to lose any memories. But if our real bodies are connected to this, then even if our deaths _here_ are not permanent, there could be other issues. What if dying here damages our real bodies, if it somehow makes us unable to go back? You know, when and if we find a way."

No-one said anything as they considered that.

"What do we do next?" Asuna finally prompted.

"Well," Kirito tried to sound upbeat, "Since we obviously are not in Akiba, we should try to get there. Thinker and Yulier were going to start their article from the Japanese server's main city. And Argo said most of your friends used the city as their base. Even if they aren't there, Akiba is the biggest town, so it would be the best place to start looking."

"So how far from town are we?" Asuna prompted thoughtfully, trying to remember the zones they had gone through in their short practice. Kite brought up his menu again, and activated another Tracker's skill. Then his jaw dropped.

"Ummmm, we are near the southern end of Okinawa," he answered.

"Ehh?" the others exclaimed in dismay.


	6. GUILD MASTER

**|GUILD MASTER|**

"How the he…eck did we end up in Okinawa?" BlackRose railed at no-one in particular, "Our characters weren't anywhere near here at the end of our test run.

Everyone exchanged uncertain glances. Asuna and Kite looked mildly concerned, while Kirito and Yui were thoughtful, but not worried. And BlackRose continued to look annoyed.

"It may be the Elder Tales kernel adapting to the hacked items we are using," Yui suggested, "Most of them came from dungeons on this island, so it may have moved us here as a result."

"It could just be a mild glitch caused by transferring our characters from the test server to the locked servers," Kirito said.

"Or it could have been a deliberate attempt to sabotage us," Asuna said darkly, "Dump us as far for Akihabara as possible. With the teleport gates down it will take us a days to get there."

"I don't think so," Kite shook his head, "If that was the case, why not put us on the South American or Antarctic servers? Or for that matter, split us up. And how would they have known we wanted to go to Akiba? I don't think anyone from QED would have betrayed us, or told anyone outside of our group."

"Are you sure?" BlackRose suddenly had a thought, "Argo is a newcomer, and in SAO she had a reputation of being willing to sell any piece of data, if you met her price."

"Argo wouldn't do that," Kirito shook his head, "She never sold information that would deliberately put someone in jeopardy; she never sold the names of the other beta players."

"I don't think anyone betrayed us," Kite insisted, "But either way, there is nothing we can do about it now, except to be careful and keep our eyes open."

"So what do we do?" Asuna asked.

"We still need to get to Akiba," BlackRose said, "So we probably should head to the capital. There should be a boat that can take us back to Honshu… Do they call it that in the game?"

"We don't need to worry about that," Yui countered brightly, "Before I came here, I downloaded the latest Fairy Ring FAQ. All we need to do is find one, and we should be able to get to Akiba in three or four jumps."

"Good job, Yui," Kirito patted the girl's head, "Then where is the closest one?"

Kite showed them his map again. Yui studied it briefly.

"There is a village, only four kilometers northeast of here," she said, "From the Fairy Ring there, we can jump to Big Apple."

"And then where?" Asuna prompted. Yui considered that, her mouth quickly dropping into a frown.

"I… I don't know," she admitted, "But if we wait a few hours, we can jump to a low level dungeon on the Chinese server instead. From there…."

She trailed off, her brow furrowing in effort.

"I think the file is corrupted," Yui finally said, "I only can access a few of the places this Fairy Ring might take us. The rest of the locations and times I can't seem to access."

"Do you still think we weren't sabotaged?" BlackRose asked her male teammates pointedly.

"Maybe," Kite shrugged, "Maybe not. Yui's avatar is Human, right? And most Humans wouldn't remember a giant file that they read once. At least not all of it. We should try taking her to one of the Rings, and see if it 'jogs her memory'."

"So, should we go to that village?" Kirito prompted. Kite and Asuna shook their heads in surprising unison. The older man waved his hand to the younger woman, offering her the chance to explain.

"No, we should go south to Naha," she paused, like BlackRose unsure if the real world names were in use in the game, "That is probably still the capital, and like BlackRose said, is probably the best place to find a ferry to Honshu."

"And while we are there, you can take her to see the Rings," Kite suggested again.

"So then it's settled," Kirito agreed. BlackRose and Yui both nodded, wearing oddly similar determined looks.

* * *

They noticed that they did not get tired as quickly as they would have in the real world. And the world of Elder Tale was half the size of real Earth. Even so, walking half-way across the shrunken, alternate Okinawa still took a decent chunk of the day.

They had also determined that they had arrived in the morning, despite having logged in in the afternoon. And as they reached the northern gate to the town, the Sun was nearing the western horizon.

"Alright," Kite said, after they passed by the guards and then the wall. He paused and pointed at a sign over a patio, "Why don't you two take Yui to the Fairy Ring, and we will go down to the docks to check on ferries. Then we can meet here for dinner."

"That sounds good," Asuna agreed, "Let us know if the ferry leaves tonight."

The SAO survivors and their daughter peeled off, heading towards the eastern entrance, where the teleporters were located. And the dot Hackers turned west, towards the ocean. Their feet were getting sore, but it only took them a few minutes to reach the docks. When they arrived, they started looking around for any sort of signage. Unable to find anything, they shared a confused look.

"Can I help you kids with something?" an older, grizzled man in a somewhat anachronistic raincoat plodded up to them.

"We are actually looking for a boat to Akiba," Kite said gratefully.

"Well, you just missed the trade ship to Maihama," he reached up to scratch his left shoulder, "It left this morning. That's the only real transport 'tween here and there these days. Should be back in about four weeks, give or take."

"Four weeks?" BlackRose protested, "Why so long?"

"Trip can take anywhere from five to eight days, one way, depending on weather and any monster or pirate attacks. Then they have to unload everything, sell it, buy the stuff we need around here, load up, and sail back. So, like I said, four weeks, depending on if'n everything goes. Might only be three weeks or so, couple times it's been a lot longer."

"You said it is the only transport 'these days'," Kite recalled, "So there used to be more?"

"Yup," the sailor nodded, "Back before the May Incident… or I hear you Adventurers call it the Catastrophe… Anyway, before that, there were a whole lot of ferries. Took people to the other side of the island, other smaller islands, and even straight to Akiba like you want."

He paused, took out a flask, and took a long pull off it.

"Back then, ferrying Adventurers was a good way for a fisherman to earn some extra money," he continued, "Sure sometimes monsters would attack them, but either the Adventurer killed the monster. Or the monster killed the Adventurer, and then got bored and left. But since then, things changed. Sometime monsters will attack a ferry even if there isn't an Adventurer on board. Not as often as when there was, but still often enough. And unlike back then, the monsters keep going even if they kill the Adventurer. Tear up the boat and kill the pilot. So most of the guys around here stopped offerin' transport, stopped going to those places. They fish the safer areas, and in big groups, so if someone does get attacked, they got a bunch people right there to help fight it off."

"So now the only one that goes back and forth is the big trade ship. It has guards and cannons, and they let Adventurers ride for free in return for helping if monsters or pirates show up.

"So, there's no other way to get back?" BlackRose prompted carefully.

"Well, if'n you know how to sail, you could buy your own boat," the NPC offered, "I know a couple a guys who might be willin' to sell, if you are looking to go cheap. Otherwise, the shipwrights around have a couple standing, ready to sell."

"Thanks, but we don't know how to sail," Kite admitted, "So we will probably just have to wait."

"I guess it's not glamorous for monster hunters like yourselves," the old man nodded, "But if you're looking to learn, it's a good way to get around and you might be able to make some money, fishing the more dangerous seas or settin' up your own ferry."

"We'll keep that in mind," BlackRose told him, unable to suppress a grin, remembering the sub class Asuna had made Kirito take.

* * *

When Kite and BlackRose arrived at the café, Kirito, Asuna, and Yui were already there. The teens were on the lookout for their teammates, but the young AI was hunched over a piece of parchment, writing furiously with a quill pen.

"Any luck?" BlackRose asked hopefully.

"A little," Asuna shrugged, "Yui remembered a few of the destinations for the Fairy Ring, so we decided to have her write them all down, both to have, and hoping it will help her remember some more."

"Unfortunately," Kirito picked up, "Only one of them is on Honshu, and that one is in the middle of a level eighty-five raid dungeon…"

"So we would get killed and end up back here," Kite concluded.

"Pretty much," the swordsman confirmed. He looked at them, and added, "I don't see either of you jumping for joy either."

"The ferries are all shut down," Kite answered, "There is a trade ship that goes to Maihama, but that just left this morning and it won't be back for about four weeks."

"Six weeks," BlackRose scowled, "Because even after it gets back, they need to unload, trade, make repairs, and load again before they leave."

Kite's shoulders slumped, realizing his wife was right. They filled the other couple in on what the old sailor had told them.

"So what are we going to do?" Yui asked softly, looking up from her writing.

"We are going to play the game," Kite said firmly, "We have four weeks. We use that time, find a dungeon. We level up and practice our skills. Practice our teamwork. Get ready, in case we encounter more bandits, or in case we were sabotaged."

"And I also want to work on my swordsmanship with you two," BlackRose added, "Swinging this big hunk of steel is a lot different than swinging a tennis racket. I'm hoping you can help me."

"Sounds good," Kirito nodded.

"Actually," Asuna said with a hint of smugness, "I think there is something else we need to do first."

She triggered her inventory, and materialized a crystal with six triangular sides. Etched inside it was a symbol of shaking hands.

"I have three of these," the brunette noted, "and I'm guessing the rest of you probably do, too."

"Yup," Yui noted, without looking up from her writing.

"Yeah, I have three of them too," BlackRose prompted, "It says they are guild crystals. So are you saying we should form a guild?"

"Yup," Asuna nodded, sounding remarkably like her daughter.

"What's a guild crystal?" Kirito asked.

"According to the guild screen," Asuna explained, "these can be used in place of GP to start a guild or purchase guild perks."

Kirito and BlackRose triggered their menus and looked at the guild screen.

"They are also used as a sort of gold voucher," Kite added, without looking, "They are equivalent to anywhere from 25K to 150K gold, depending on which perk you are buying. But because they are a special item, they never drop when a player dies. So they have become a safe way to carry a gold to places where there's no bank, and generally in the past have been worth right around 100K GP. But that might have gone up if guilds are using them in this world to shore up their perks."

"Sounds like someone did his homework," Asuna noted Kite had never looked at the menu like their partners had. She had already done so while they were waiting for the .hackers.

"I like to be prepared," the Cleric shrugged, "I'm the one who asked Wiseman to see if he could add them to our inventory, either to sell or to use if we made a guild."

"So why didn't you bring it up?" BlackRose said, "These perks are pretty decent. We might not have a personal house to convert to a guild hall yet, but we could definitely use the rest of these."

"Kirito has a reputation for being 'anti-guild'," Kite explained, "I wanted to get a lay of the land, before I had to debate it with him."

"It's not like I've never joined a guild," the Assassin protested. His lover gave him a withering look, and his expression turned sheepish.

"Fine," he admitted, "But given the way things are, with the five of us being a team, and those guild perks, I think it's a good idea."

"And if we get famous, we might be able to get our friends to look for us, instead," the Paladin said.

"Well it sounds like we are all in agreement that we should make a guild," Asuna said, "Now the question is the specifics."

"What do you mean, Mommy?" Yui asked, finally setting down the quill.

"Well, for starters, we need a guild master," the Fencer expounded, "and a guild name that is easy enough to remember but that our friends will recognize."

"We also should decide which perks we want," Kite added, "After making the guild, getting guild chat, and at least a starter guild bank, that will leave us with 12 of the fifteen crystals. And I think we should save some as vouchers or in case we decide we need a guild hall, or a bigger bank, or… whatever…"

"Sounds like our guild leader has things well in hand," Asuna said firmly, pushing the crystal towards the older man.

"Huh? Me? I thought it would be Asuna. She has more experience with leading a guild…"

"That was a different game, different type of guild," the brunette quickly interrupted, "You have much more experience leading a small group of friends with an unclear goal."

"And you just don't want to be the one in charge," Kirito pointed out.

"Yup,"

"You should do it, uncle Kite," Yui said, "But you can have a lieutenant, even with a guild this small, and that should be Mommy."

Both glanced at the girl, and their nodding partners. Then they shrugged in defeat.

"Okay, but what about the name?" Kite asked.

"Why not the '.hackers'?" Kirito said, actually sounding a little excited to associate himself with the infamous gamer group.

"System won't allow it," Kite shook his head, "And would Thinker and Yulier even recognize that?"

"Thinker would," Kite said confidently, "So what about a variant?"

"No, not so far," Kite frowned, "it has rejected versions with dot as a period, or the word spelled out. It won't take it in either katakana or letters. Or with a space or dash between dot and hack…"

"What about 'Knights of the Blood Oath'?" BlackRose suggested.

"It's taken," Kite countered.

"And would your people even recognized it?" Asuna added.

"What about 'Knights of Aura'?" Yui wrote down the name, with AURA in capital letters and the rest in hiragana.

"'Knights of AURA' … 'AURA no Kishdan'," Kite said the name in English, and then again in Japanese, as if getting a feel for it.

"It is less blatant," Kirito nodded, "But there is a chance that our friends, all of our friends, will recognize what it means."

"It does describe us better than .hackers," the pinkette agreed, "Neither of us was actually a hacker back them, and I'm still not much of one now. And from what I hear, you two aren't either, so that means only Kite and maybe Yui qualify."

"Let's do it," Asuna nodded brightly.

"Registering guild, Knights of AURA."


	7. CRIMSON GATE

**|CRIMSON GATE|**

"Any good leads?" Kirito asked, after Asuna and BlackRose sat down.

"Not really," the Paladin shook her head.

"According to the NP… Landers, and the few Adventurers we met," the younger woman explained, "there are four main dungeons on this island. One of them is in the low sixties for levels, and two have levels over eighty. Only one is in the mid-seventies, and that is in the area those jerks we met yesterday think they control. We did learn that they normally party with a Kannagi and a Sorcerer, so we got lucky."

"So are we going to go to the level sixty dungeon?" Yui asked.

"Either that or one of the fields," Kirito mused, "There are few monsters in the field zones, but at least their levels will make them a better challenge."

"We could start with the low level dungeon since we are still trying to get a feel for the game," Asuna suggested, "And then go to a field zone once…"

"We should probably wait to see if Kite can find anything else," BlackRose said sharply, and the teens nodded, realizing they had been cutting the pinkette and her absent husband out of the planning.

"He has a talent for finding information, so he might turn up something we missed," she added more gently, picking up a menu.

"That depends on what you missed," Kite countered, suddenly slipping into the last empty chair at the table. He looked at each of them and said, "Because I think I know where we need to go first."

They all just looked at him.

"Did you two hear any rumors about the 'Crimson Gate'?" he asked the ladies. BlackRose shook her head broadly, while Asuna's similar reaction was more sedate.

"There is a rocky hill, about three kilometers south of the city," he began, "Perfectly normal, until four months ago, when a massive pair of double doors appeared. They are made of red gold and set with rubies, so they were given the nickname 'Crimson Gate'. The doors are also sealed, and apparently indestructible. So far no-one has been able get through, or if they have they have not shared."

"Four months ago," Kirito noted thoughtfully, "That would be…"

"The release of Homesteading the Noosphere, or the Catastrophe on this side," Kite nodded, "I have three theories about this, none of them mutually exclusive."

"The obvious idea is that it is a new dungeon for the new expansion," Asuna concluded, "But then you would think that someone would have found their way in by now."

"Except they don't have the internet," Yui said, "If the Crimson Gate is a puzzle, then in the normal world, the players would have teamed up, sharing information on a forum, until they figured out how to get in. They can't do that in this world."

"Not to mention they have had other things to worry about," BlackRose noted, "Like how did we get here, and why does everything taste like mush. So, a new dungeon makes perfect sense, but what are the other options?"

"The next most likely option," the Cleric continued, "is that it is a GM Room."

The others all took a harsh breath.

"It might have been there the whole time," Kite reminded them, "Just hidden from the Players and NPCs. But now that this world is something else, whatever concealed it might no longer work. But the security that kept people out could still be in place."

"If that is the case…" Kirito started and then trailed off.

"Yup," Kite said with a half-hearted chuckle, "_IF_ it is a GM Room, and _if_ it still works in this world, we could probably give ourselves any weapon, any hard to obtain skill or sub-class, and max out our levels. But the real treasure would be the information we would be able to access."

They all considered that for a moment.

"Okay, so what is the third option?" BlackRose finally prompted.

"It is the enemy's base, or at least one of them. I would say the chances are small. But if all of this isn't just an accident caused by someone at Atharva messing around with Harald's Black Box without understanding it… If this was deliberate, whoever did it would need a someplace to operate from. They could use a GM Room, or new dungeon, but it would be safer to create a new zone that the players and admins aren't already aware of. And seal it off, of course."

"It does sound like a good place to start," Asuna agreed, "If it is a new dungeon, we will have it all to ourselves. And the new drops and information will sell for a pretty penny, once we are done."

"Unless it is another high level dungeon," BlackRose reminded them.

"In which case we can try to kite single monsters and fight them like bosses," Kirito shrugged, "Or just leave until we are higher level."

"I think this is a good idea," Yui said.

"There is one more thing," Kite interrupted. They looked back to him again.

"There was a Dwarf Monk Adventurer who came through here two weeks ago," he explained, "She said she was going to conquer the doors, no matter what. But no-one has seen her for eleven days. She hasn't even come back for supplies. So there are rumors that she made it inside, but whatever was in there was able to permanently kill her."

"Or she failed and snuck back to Honshu with her tail between her legs," BlackRose said sarcastically.

"Dwarves don't have tails," Yui said matter-of-factly.

"That's true," Kirito allowed with a smile, then said more seriously, "If she never went to the Cathedral here, than she could have been killed and sent back to Maihama or Akiba. She could be waiting for a ship, the same as we are."

"Or it could be large dungeon, and it is just taking her that long to explore it," Kite added, "Or she found a clue that sent her somewhere else on the island. Or any number of other things. I just wanted to bring it up, so you would know we might have competition, or in case anyone had second thoughts."

"Nope," Asuna said, "Wiseman mentioned testing the system boundaries in SAO, I think this sounds like the same thing here. Not that we should be stupid about it, but we definitely need to try."

"Okay, then let's go!" BlackRose said brightly. Then a loud rumble echoed out of her midsection.

"Maybe after lunch?" Kirito countered with a broad grin.

* * *

"Somehow 'massive' doesn't really do it justice," Asuna said in awe.

The Crimson Gates were at least seventy meters tall, and each of the doors was forty meters wide. They were set in an outcropping of granite, inclined backwards like the rock face. In the upper half of each door was a large hexagonal ruby, which appeared to big as any three of them put together, four if Kite and Yui were both included. Nearly the bottom, there was a square of one hundred forty four fist sized rubies, half of the array on each door. To the veteran gamers it screamed 'puzzle', and when Kite touched one, it glowed for moment, before fading out.

"That is a lot of gold," BlackRose agreed, a hint of averice in her voice.

"Except," her husband reminded her, "according to the Landers' rumors, 'neither sword shall cut nor spell mar them'."

Kirito drew his wolf themed sword, and swiped it across the surface, calling out, "Deadly Dance."

For a second, the path of the Assassin's skill glowed bright on the gate. Then it faded away without a mark. Kirito checked his weapon's edge, and then sheathed it again.

"Hmm," Asuna made a thoughtful noise, "What about those scratches?"

She pointed to the left side of the door from the jewel grid. As she indicated, there was a series of slight lines and divots, as if someone had tried repeatedly to slice or stab the door and had managed the lightly mark the gold.

"Maybe it has really high damage reduction, and Kirito's attack wasn't strong enough to overcome it?" BlackRose suggested, reaching for her zweihander.

"Oh!" Yui exclaimed, and then pulled parchment and pen from her equipment and began scribing quickly. They all observed her expectantly, and after just over a minute, the young AI let out a disgruntled, "Huh."

"What is it, Yui?" her mother asked gently.

"I thought it might be Morse Code," the girl said, showing them the page, "But it doesn't spell anything."

"It looks almost like English," Kirito mused, looking at the sheet, "Just yeah, it's pretty garbled."

"It's German," Kite said, gently taking the page, "'Excluding the east and south, stars of light, dark, and wisdom lead the ironic sign of the Son, to complete the circle.'"

Then he looked at the rest of his guild and shrugged apologetically, "Sorry, I guess it is a little more lyrical in the original."

"You speak German?" Kirito asked.

"Fairly well," the older man confirmed, "Emma was German, and not all of her surviving works have been translated into Japanese. I thought learning to read them might give me insight to Harald, or The World. Or just let me tell Aura more about her mother."

"So what do we think it means?" BlackRose asked.

"It seems fairly simple," Kite answered, "I think we ignore the bottom and right most rows, and draw out a pentagram, inverted pentagram, Seal of Solomon, a Christian cross, and a circle in the rest of the grid."

"Oh, you weren't saying 'sun' in English," Kirito realized, "but 'Son' as a proper noun."

The other man nodded.

"Should we try it?" the pinkette prompted.

"What if there is a penalty for getting it wrong?" Yui asked in response.

"There could be," Kirito agreed, "Unfortunately, I don't see any other markings, so we won't know unless we try. And it didn't do anything the first time Kite touched it."

The Cleric looked mildly chagrinned, thinking he should have known better than to just touch a puzzle at random.

Asuna bit her lip slightly, and looked at the doors thoughtfully.

"I'll do it," BlackRose offered, "I have the most HP, best physical defense, and pretty high magic defense. And Kite can heal me if something does happen."

"Are you sure, Rose?" the Cleric asked her gently.

"Yeah," she said more confidently than she felt, "No point in wasting time."

"We'll have potions ready, too," Yui said, "Right, Mama, Papa?"

Kirito nodded, taking out both a healing potion and an antidote. Yui took out another HP restorative, and medicine to cure the paralysis condition. Asuna continued to frown at the door, until Kirito nudged her.

"Okay," the Paladin mumbled as she touched the gems, "Star… upside-down, imbalanced star… two triangles… short bar, long bar… and a circle."

As she touched the crystals, they lit up, and continued glowing until she completed each symbol. But after the circle faded out, nothing happened.

"Did you translate it wrong, uncle Kite?" the Summoner asked innocently.

"I don't think so," he pursed his lips and looked at the scroll again, "Maybe the pattern was off. Should we try to map the symbols out on paper?"

"I have an idea," Asuna said, "Two actually."

They all turned their attention to her.

"Okay, so for 'excluding the south and east', you left out the bottom row and right column," the Swashbuckler began, "which makes sense, since on most maps have south on the bottom and east on the right. But what if it is more literal? We are facing pretty much due south now, and the door is leaning away from us. So in that sense, the south most row is the top row, and the east most row is on the left."

"That is logical," Kite agreed, "But would make the riddle a little tougher. It is worth a try."

"And the other thing, Mama?"

"I think BlackRose drew the cross wrong," she said, slightly sheepish, "When I was younger, my parents went to Italy on a business trip, and they took me and my brother with them. It was over Easter, and we had dinner with my Father's business partner. They taught us that when you sign the cross, you do the vertical line first, top to bottom, and then the horizontal line, left to right. BlackRose did the horizontal line first, and she did it right to left."

"Should I try it again?" the older woman asked, and the others nodded.

"Go for it," Kirito agreed, lifting up the potions again.

"Right, so, bottom right… Star… upside-down, imbalanced star… two triangles… up, down, left to right… and a circle."

As she touched the last ruby in the circle, the glow began to fade again. Only this time, the larger gems in the upper half of the doors began to shine. There was clicking sound, like a lock disengaging. And the doors parted slightly, swinging a few centimeters inward.

"Alright!" BlackRose high-fived her husband, while Kirito hugged his lover and child, "Take that walkthoughs!"

"Still, a puzzle using Morse Code, German language, and western symbology, on a Japanese server," Asuna shook her head, and held on to Kirito's arm, "We are lucky we had the skills to solve that."

"I am a little surprised Yui-chan knows Morse Code," Kite smiled down at the girl.

"Yui loves codes, ciphers, and hacking in general," Kirito explained, mussing the girl's hair. Then the moment passed, and they all turned to the open doors again.

"So now what?" Kirito finally said.

"You, Asuna, and BlackRose go inside, and close the doors," Kite said, "We test to see if both party and guild chat will still work. You three see if there is any way to open the doors from the inside. Then, if we haven't heard from you in two minutes, or if you can't find a way out, we can open the doors again and let you out."

"Okay," Asuna sounded mostly agreeable, but still asked, "But why both of you? Why don't I just stay outside? Or just send one of us in?"

"If the puzzle changes once the doors are closed, Yui and I stand the best chance of solving it, especially if our communications are cut off. And if it is a dungeon, and there are mobs close to the entrance, you three stand the best chance of holding them off until we open the doors again. Unless anyone has another suggestion?"

"Nope," she shook her head, "Sounds good…"

Asuna was cut off as an unearthly moan emerged from behind the Crimson Gate.

"Sounds like this dungeon has undead monsters," Yui said earnestly, as another groan emerged, this one louder and closer. Kite activated his Tracker's scanning but could not make out anything beyond the entrance, monsters or otherwise.

"Awwooo…" a pitiable voice wailed, and a skeletal hand clasped the edge of the door, pulling it in. Four swords, two shields, and a staff appeared, all ready to strike.

"Food," the voice pleaded, and painfully thin, Dwarf woman stumbled out. Other than her height and the width of her shoulders, she looked more Human than Dwarf, though part of that may have been from her advanced state of hunger. She was wearing thick, chocolate leather vest that expose large sections of her breasts and stomach, a short skirt of the same material, and heavy bracers and thigh high boots of thinner, grey leather and silvery metal. Her skin was well tanned, and her head was topped by a mop of short, messy, bright red hair.

She lifted her head, and despite the thinness of her face, the .Hackers could not help but think she looked familiar. He eyes locked on them, blinking rapidly.

"Must be hallucination," she mumbled in a more familiar voice, "Think I see Blackose and Kite…"

"Alkaid!?" the married pair exclaimed in unison.


	8. SEGMENT RECRUIT

**|SEGMENT RECRUIT|**

"Oh… nom, nom… man," Alkaid mumbled out the words around the mouthful of BlackRose's sandwich. She had already eaten the lunches Asuna had prepared for the two men, her emaciated form filling out with unnatural speed. As if she had been suffering from a 'starvation' debuff, and eating removed it. With that thought, Kite focused on her, bringing up the red-head's character window. It was not as comprehensive as the information he got from the party window, but it was a start.

Her character was named Alkaid Benetnash, the Cleric expected the simply 'Alkaid' had already been taken when the younger woman started the game. She was a Dwarven Monk, at level 84, with the Berserker subclass at level 82.

"This is really good," the Monk moaned in delight, "I haven't had anything to eat in three days. At this point I would have gone back to the flavorless food from when we first got here. If you hadn't shown up, I probably would have died by the end of the day."

"So you were trapped inside, Alkaid?" Kite asked, glancing at the door cautiously.

"Yeah," she nodded after taking another bite, "There's a big ruby on either side of the door. I think you need to touch them both at the same time. But they are as far apart as the doors, and even with my fastest movement skill I couldn't hit them both."

She pointed, and through the still open doors, they could see the glint of one of the gems she was talking about.

"It is not designed for solo players," Kirito said with a hint of annoyance.

"Got a problem with solo players?" Alkaid rumbled, giving him a sharp look.

"No, as a solo player…"

"Former," Asuna insisted.

"… I have a problem with dungeons that require a party to finish. Especially ones that let you get to a certain point alone, and then force you to have a party."

Alkaid relaxed and nodded her agreement.

"Still," BlackRose looked at the younger woman dubiously, "I'm surprised you were able to solve the puzzle on your own. I wouldn't have thought you spoke German or were familiar with symbology."

"So there was a puzzle," the red-head resumed her munching, "I just hit the buttons at random until the doors opened."

"But why were you here?" Asuna asked, "Why were you so determined to be the first to conquer this dungeon, and to do it solo? It there some sort of special drop?"

"That's just how she is," BlackRose said.

"She's not wrong," Alkaid agreed, "I love to be the first to raise my flag over a challenge. But in this case, I was doing it for senpai."

"Someone from the game?"

"Yes, senpai is the one who introduced me to Elder Tale," the Monk confirmed, lowering the remainder of the sandwich, "But she is my actual senior at college, a year ahead of me. Not that you could tell it to look at her, she looks more like a middle schooler. But don't say that to her face, she is also a third dan in kendo."

"So this person asked you to investigate the Crimson Gates?" Yui asked.

"No, she doesn't know yet," Alkaid shook her head, "But senpai used to be a solo player. In fact, she used to have a male avatar. But after the Catastrophe, she used a rare potion to switch to a female avatar, and then she joined a guild. I'm not sure how it happened, I almost think that villain in glasses must have tricked or even blackmailed her…"

* * *

_Shiroe quickly turned his head, so the massive, sudden sneeze did not ruin the magical contract he was writing._

"_Are you getting sick, my liege?" Akatsuki asked anxiously, "Or is there a draft?"_

"_No," the Enchanter pursed his lips in thought._

_Naotsugu smirked and said, "Then someone must be talking about you. Maybe it is a cute gi…"_

_He was cut off as a tiny foot collided sharply with his jaw._

"_Permission to kick this one-track mind pervert in the head, my liege?" the slight Assassin requested, glaring at the Guardian._

"_How many times do I have to tell you to ask first!"_

_Ignoring them, Shiroe dismissed the stray thoughts and returned to his experiment._

* * *

"… So I thought if I was able to be the first to conquer a whole new dungeon, I could show senpai that you can still be a solo player, even in all of this. Plus, if I give that information obsessed jerk the maps and enemy patterns, he might let me join their guild."

They all noticed the contradiction in her goals, but were smart enough not to call her on it.

"What about you guys?" Alkaid turned it back on them, "I didn't know you two played this game. And who are your new friends?"

"We didn't," Kite told her softly. The Monk narrowed her eyes at them.

"Again?" she prompted, "You didn't learn your lesson after that death game?"

Asuna gave the older couple a piercing look.

"The stakes are bigger this time," BlackRose answered firmly, "More people missing, less information as to what happened, and more of our friends trapped this time. People actually vanishing into thin air rather than just comas."

"Who else is here?" Alkaid looked surprised. Then she looked at Kirito, Asuna, and Yui again, "And you still didn't tell me who these three are."

"Tsukasa, Subara, Natsume, and Sanjuro," Kite answered, "At least you five are the only ones we knew of before we came in here. And as for these three…"

He smirked at them.

"… they are our government handlers," he concluded.

"Government handlers?" Alkaid and Asuna exclaimed incredulously, almost in unison.

"We were survivors of 'that death game'," Kirito told the red-head, seemingly upset by her use of the term, "And the Virtual Department has put me to work since then."

"When VD learned QED was investigating the Elder Tale Disappearances," the humor was gone from Kite's voice again, "they insisted Kirito and Asuna monitor us. They trust these two more than they trust us, and must have thought we would be more likely to trust them than a professional agent. I also think they may have expected something like this was possible, and were counting on their experience."

"Wait," Alkaid gaped, "You are _that_ Kirito and Asuna? The ones everyone says beat SAO and saved everyone still alive in the game."

"That was Mama and Papa," Yui insisted proudly. Alkaid gave her an odd look.

"Still kinda surprised you would be willing to get trapped in another game," she ignored the girl.

"We didn't know that would happen," Asuna said softly, "And we also have friends in this world."

"And what are all of you doing here?" the Monk continued, "I would think you would be in Akiba, trying to help the Round Table investigate stuff."

"We just got here yesterday," BlackRose explained with a hint of exasperation, "It took Helba, Aura, and Wiseman a while to figure out how to connect to here. And when we logged in, we found ourselves in a random field on Okinawa, instead of in Akiba like we expected. And since we missed the boat to Maihama, and were stuck here for a month, we thought we would check out the new doors no-one had been able to get through. We were hoping it was something special, but if it was just a dungeon, we figured we could work with that."

"So what's the big plan?" Alkaid looked at each of them, as if gauging them.

"Nothing firm," Kite said, "You should know that about us. But basically, find all of our friends and make sure they are okay. See if they want to join us, or at least get them on our contacts lists. And then try to find a way back to the real world."

"And by join you…"

"Join our guild if they are willing," Asuna responded, "We named it in the hopes that all of them would recognize it. If not, just work with us, however they can."

"So would you have room in your guild for a Monk a few levels higher than you, one who is more used to playing solo, but does have more experience in how this weird ass hybrid world works?"

Alkaid looked slightly nervous as she said that, even blushing a little.

"Of course you are welcome," Kite said kindly.

"I thought you wanted to join your senpai's guild?" Kirito asked carefully.

"I did," she agreed, "But even if I admire her, it's more of a one-sided thing. She knows me, but I wouldn't say we are really friends. And I don't want to deal with that villain in glasses if I don't have to. Besides, even if Kite and BlackRose weren't my friends, you guys have a proven track record in this sort of situation. Though I would have felt better if Haseo were here as well. But I guess he can't leave Atoli and they can't both come. She must have popped by now, right?"

"Actually," Kite coughed slightly, "It has only been two months in the real world. Though she is due any day now."

Alkaid shook her head slowly, with a look of regret.

"You sure are taking this well," Asuna addressed the older girl.

"I've been though enough weird stuff back in The World. This isn't anything stranger than that," Alkaid said the a sarcastic shrug. Then she shook it off, and gave them a firm look.

"Well, like I said, if you will have me, send me an invite."

Kite's eyes flickered, and the other four members of his party saw his menu screen pop up. A moment later, a prompt appeared in front of Alkaid.

**[Kite has asked you to join his party.]**

The Monk immediately jammed the yes button. The Cleric hit a few buttons to supplement his telepathic manipulation of the menus, and another message appeared.

**[The guild master has invited you to join "Knights of AURA". Warning, you may only belong to one guild at a time. Items placed in the guild bank are not secure.]**

Again, without hesitation, she accepted the offer.

"Cool," she said, looking at their stats in the party window, "So what is the immediate plan, since we're still stuck on this island?"

"Unless the monsters inside were too strong for you, we should continue to explore this dungeon," Asuna said, "There could still be a GM Room or enemy base at the bottom, and even if there isn't, we are new to the game and need the drops, the levels, and most of all the practice."

"Nah, the monsters on the first floor are medium or large size dragons, and a few slimes, most in the level 71 to 74 range. The second floor adds some lizard men, and bumps the level up to 73 to 76. Unfortunately, I started to run out of food, so I only got a little of the way into one of the sections of the third floor. The six of us should be able to handle it, easy."

"Okay," Kite nodded, "Then we will go with a slight change of the original plan…"

He was interrupted as the Crimson Gates forcibly slammed shut. He looked at his screen and chuckled lightly.

"Thirty-eight minutes, on the nose," he sounded vindicated. Yui let out a slight noise of understanding and tapped her right fist against her left palm.

"Does that mean something?" Asuna asked, "Is it important?"

"Not unless you are a fan of American sci-fi from twenty years ago," their elected leader explained.

"Ahh," Kirito's exclamation mirrored his daughter's.

"You know it, Papa?" Yui prompted hopefully.

"No, but if you play enough of these games, you learn to expect the shout outs and otaku jokes hidden inside," he shook his head.

"Anyway, the plan is to send half of the party inside and close the doors," Kite resumed, "See if we can still use telechat in any of the various forms, and also check to see if the panels Alkaid found really do open it from the inside. So if either of those doesn't work, the team staying out here can let the others out. If there are any problems, we reassess. If not, I suggest we go back, get some more food, spend the night at the inn and then dive into the dungeon tomorrow."

"Can we call the team going to test the chat and the exit the MALP team?" Yui asked.

"I get the feeling I should be insulted by that," Alkaid looked at the girl suspiciously, "And just who is the chibi, anyway?"

"About that…"

* * *

"Status check," Kite prompted, shifting the lightly loaded backpack he had in addition to the magic bag Wiseman had been able to hack in for each of them, "We have enough food for a week, ten days if we are conservative. We know we can talk to the outside…"

"Not that anyone but Alkaid will have anyone on the outside to talk to," his wife interrupted smugly.

"… and get back out. We have potions and a healer. Are there any other pitfalls anyone can think of before we start?"

After a round of head shaking, he nodded

"Okay," he said, "Then let's see just how deep this goes, and what we can take out of it."

He traced the star symbol in the rubies again, and behind him heard Yui whisper, "Chevron one, encoded."

He grinned slightly, and four symbols later, the doors opened was a slight whoosh of air being sucked into the dungeon.


	9. DUNGEON DIVE

**DUNGEON_DIVE**

Kirito's right hand sword cleaved a slime in half. The creature did not die, but instead became two separate entities. His other blade flashed out horizontally, finishing both in one blow. Alkaid's tonfas bounced off the remaining two of the initial three blobs, keeping their attention off the swordsman.

BlackRose parried the dragon's claw, giving Asuna a chance to stab deep into its side. The pinkette's HP still took a small dip, so Kite put a Reactive Heal on her. At the same instant, the dragon's tail swung around and clipped the Paladin's side. The Cleric spell reacted, restoring the damage from both hits.

"Yui, take the slimes so we can focus on the dragon, please," their elected leader called.

"Summon: Gnome," Yui called out. A cat of sand pulled itself out of the dungeon floor. The familiar had eight legs instead of four, granite claws, and literal emerald eyes.

"Get 'em," the young AI commanded. With a yowl, the feline pounced on one of the jelly monsters. It tore off chunks of the slime, attracting the attention of it sibling. Kirito and Alkaid both took advantage of the distraction, turning back to the dragon.

The mini-boss of the Crimson Gate's first floor, it was larger than the other drakes and wyverns they had faced. It also summoned the slimes, which had been separate encounters on their way to the second floor. Now they served as a secondary threat, preventing the party from putting all their focus on the boss.

It prepared to bite at BlackRose. Before it could, Alkaid jumped at the dragon.

"Wyvern Kick," she called out. Her foot slammed hard into the beast's flank. It closed its mouth, and turned to face the Monk. While it was pivoting, the younger couple moved with it. After Alkaid spun her tonfa out for three more lightning quick blows, the teens struck.

"Paralyzing Blow," the Assassin proclaimed.

"Thrust Joker," the Swashbuckler announced.

Kirito and Asuna drove their respective swords into the dragon's neck. It frozen in place as the Black Swordsman's blow delivered its status ailment. Then Yui's Gnome jumped onto the dragon's back, having finished the last slime.

"Elemental Blast," the girl chanted, and the cat's eight paws seemed to explode downward, forcing the paralyzed dragon down to the floor.

"Rising Panther," Alkaid drove the short side of her weapon upwards into the boss's jaw.

"Honor's Rage!" BlackRose exclaimed, her heavy blade carving deep into its flank as she tried to reclaim its attention.

"Get ready for adds!" Kite shouted as the dragon's HP dipped below one quarter. Sure enough, it threw off both the paralysis and the Gnome as it let out a guttural roar. Four more blobs fell off the ceiling.

"Dual Bash," the Cleric instantly slammed both of his shields down on one of the slimes. It popped like a balloon. Yui switched her target to the slime closest to her mother, and the earthen feline dove onto in in a flurry of claws. One of the slimes was one the far side of the room, and began to drag itself towards the fight. The last slime landed right between Kirito and BlackRose. It spun it place, whipping out two tentacles that liberally coated the two Humans in mucus. The damage was minimal, but their movements were slowed.

"Area Cure," Kite pointed his left hand in the direction of his wife and the only other male in their party. Light flitted around them, and the gunk faded away. Kirito turned away from the dragon and diced up the aggressive little blob.

"One last push," Asuna called out, "X-Cross."

Her blade danced across the scales, leaving a glow 'x' pattern.

"Sweeper," Kirito proclaimed, both of his swords plunging forward. The dragon froze, and then exploded into a cloud of rainbow soap bubbles. On the floor was a pile of gold coins, six bottles filled with a pinkish fluid, three big hunks of meat, and a double-bladed, two-handed axe, the head of which appeared to be made from two large fangs.

"Still hogging the last attack?" Asuna teased her lover.

"Not that it matters," BlackRose joined in, "There's no special bonus for that here."

"Assassins have skills that are suited for finishing a weakened opponent," Kirito said defensively.

"721 gold apiece," Kite announced, ignoring them, "And one of these unidentified potions for each of us. Yui can figure out what they do later. Asuna, please take the steaks, we can have them for dinner tonight. And BlackRose, will you carry the axe since you have the highest strength?"

They all took the indicated items, even while the girls continued to needle Kirito fondly.

"You guys really are a well-oiled machine," Alkaid said suddenly, "I'm not sure why you thought you needed practice. But it makes me glad I joined up."

"We are glad to have you," Yui smiled at her.

"It would have been much harder to deal with the dragon without you," Asuna agreed laying off her lover for the moment.

"Do we want to head down to the next level?" Kirito suggested, happy to divert the conversation.

"Yes," Kite said, and Yui nodded.

"Okay, down here there are lizardmen that control and buff the dragons," Alkaid explained as they started towards the door, "Better to finish them first, since they are weaker, but they make the dragons more annoying. Hey…"

"Hey, what?" BlackRose asked.

"I just thought of something," the red-headed Dwarf said, "You never mentioned Overskills, have any of you tried to create one?"

"Overskills?" Asuna parroted in confusion.

"Overskills," Alkaid confirmed, and then realized they didn't understand, "Or maybe you're calling them Teachings like some people do? Personally, I consider Overskills to be Teachings that are used for combat. Sort of a subset, I guess. But most people use them interchangeably."

"Sorry," Kite said, "but this is the first we've heard of either of them."

"But you know about how to cook, right?" she frowned, looking at the Chef. Asuna nodded.

"That's a Teaching," Alkaid said.

"So cooking is a Teaching?" Yui tilted her head as she considered that.

"Maybe I should start over," Alkaid sighed, "So this world is all kinds of funky. Some things work like the real world. Other things work like the game. And others mix them together randomly. Like cooking. You could be a master chef and run your own restaurant back home, but here, if you don't have the Chef subclass, or a magic apron, anything you try to cook will turn to garbage. But on the flip side, if you try to cook things through the menu, they look great but have no flavor."

"Magic apron?" BlackRose prompted incredulously when the other woman paused.

"Don't get me started," Alkaid sounded like she agreed, "Anyway, a Teaching is any way to use a class or subclass skill that is different than how it was in the Elder Tale game. Cooking, tailoring, and engineering are the most common right now. And an Overskill, again just for me, is a combat Teaching, a way to use or combine skills in combat, to produce a new skill. Like this catfolk Monk I heard about that combines the Monk's Wild Cat Stance and the race skill Cat Reflection. Her attack power goes through the roof, but she goes completely out of control for the duration. Or this Enchanter I heard about, she's supposedly able to combine Pulse Bullet and Mana Siphon into one attack that damages both the opponent's HP and MP, and feeds them to her."

"All the Overskills I know of are unique," Alkaid added as the others considered, "Though there aren't that many. They seem to be tied to the preferences and mind set of the person who created them. But other Teachings, live recipes and blueprints and stuff, they can be passed on. Which is another reason I consider them separate."

"So, do you have an Overskill?" Asuna asked, studying the older girl.

"Not yet," the red-headed admitted, "I've been working on this idea, kind like reversing my Berserker subclass. Toughen myself up and weaken my attack power from the beginning. And save up all the damage I take for one killing blow."

Alkaid shrugged, "So far I haven't gotten it to work, yet. I can increase my defense at the cost of my power, but not as much as I need to. And the gathering up part still doesn't do anything. I've seen Overskills before, so I know they're real. I was thinking maybe you need some rank 5 or 6 skills, before you can get a Overskill."

Kirito swung his swords in a slightly familiar pattern, while Asuna focused on her rapier. BlackRose looked down the edge of her giant blade. And Kite and Yui both pursed their lips thoughtfully.

"Let's keep moving," the Cleric said.

"Yes," Yui nodded.

* * *

"Alright, level 72," BlackRose proclaimed as the last lizardman fell. The reward screens popped up, though the actually items just appeared on the ground. Kite called up the party screen to confirm that everyone except Alkaid had all gained their second level since entering the dungeon. Then he returned his attention to the spoils.

"Nothing special here," he commented, "a little gold, and a couple skins. Alkaid, can you take the crafting materials?"

The Monk gave him a thumbs up, and he directed the drops to her, before hitting the button to even split the gold between them. Even though the treasures and materials appeared physically, they were still tied initially to the person or party that earned them.

"It is almost five thirty," he continued, "Should we go back to the safe zone and make dinner? Then we can decide if we want to finish mapping out this floor before we settle in for the night."

"Sounds good to me," BlackRose nodded.

"Yes, food," Alkaid grunted.

"Yay, mama's cooking," Yui cheered. They started to head back to the northwest corner of the second floor. There was a safe zone, a room monsters could not enter, attacks fizzled, and recovery was moderately increased. From what Alkaid had told them, only the largest or deadliest dungeons had safe zones, and given the size of the first floor and what they had mapped of the second floor, the Crimson Gate definitely qualified.

"And I would like to hear more about you, Alkaid," Kirito said, "If you don't mind, that is. We didn't have much time to research the .Hackers before we ended up here, but I don't remember your name coming up."

"Well, I did spend a good chunk of the event as a Lost One," the dwarf noted, "After that damned, AIDA-infected Boudoir killed me."

"Bordeaux," BlackRose corrected with a grin.

"You saw her character's 'costume'," Alkaid made finger quotes as she said it, "I stand by what I said… Anyway, I still pulled my weight when I was awake. And after, in the fight against Cubia, too. Though I guess a lot of what went on was covered up…"

"Did you research the original group, our group?" Kite asked, gesturing at his wife, "Or did you cover the second group as well?"

The SAO survivors' expressions said they didn't know what he was talking about.

"Drake!" BlackRose called out, as a dragon the size of a small car respawned in front of them.

* * *

"There's one I don't understand," Kirito said.

"One thing?" Asuna prompted incredulously, her eyes practically swirling.

"Where did the AIDAs all come from?" he asked.

While Asuna had prepared the dragon steaks, garlic rolls, and carrot spinach salad, the .Hackers had told the SAO survivors about the GU event. AIDA and the Epitaph Users. The event with the AIDA server, in which players were unable to log out and experienced the game as if it were real. Tri-Edge, the Lost Ones, and the final battle with Cubia. The teens and their daughter listened intently, right up until their chef announced it was time to eat. They dined in silence, digesting on multiple levels. Only once they were done, did Kazuto ask his question.

"To explain that," Kite said, "We'll have to step back and go into why The World R:2 came to be."

"Why am I flashing back to being trapped in ALO?" Asuna shuddered slightly.

"Because you're a perceptive girl," BlackRose gave her a reassuring look, and Yui hugged her arm.

"The parallel is definitely there," Kite said, "Some of the executives at CC Corp knew about Aura. They considered her their property. Aura had other ideas, and the power and free-will to back them up. So CC Corp decided they would create a new cyber sentient, but one that was more pliable and obedient."

"Of course, Morganna Mode Gone was long gone at that point," the pinkette picked up for her husband, "Harald had hidden or destroyed the original code. And there wasn't much left of her in The World. Parts were removed to be integrated into Aura, and others were just destroyed by the Data Drains to the Phases of the Wave."

"All the king's horses and all the king's men," Alkaid quipped.

"Basically," Kite agreed, "They had their best programmers and data scientists recover and reassemble Morganna, and then tweak her so the AI she created would be more to their liking."

"Officially," BlackRose said darkly, "They wanted something to govern their MMOs. To make the NPCs more human, to create new items, areas, quests, etc. And to guard the gates and deal with cheaters."

"Like Cardinal," Yui exclaimed, and both men nodded.

"That was right around the time Kayaba was ramping up SAO," Kite agreed, "It's not clear if he stole the idea from them, they stole it from him, or it was just multiple discovery."

"So that altered Morganna was the source of the AIDA," Asuna half-asked, half-stated.

"Yes," the Cleric confirmed, "the Frankenstein's monster version of Morganna they created spun out hundreds of incomplete and unstable AIs. Which the original did, too. But at least Morganna Mode Gone cleaned up after herself. She didn't just let destructive AIs run wild over The World."

"Are you going to tell them your theory?" the Paladin prompted, and even Alkaid looked surprised at that. Kite shrugged, and waved his hand at her.

"He thinks CC Corp may have tried to insert their Franken-Morganna into the original The World at the end," she continued, "And that it overloaded the system, and started the fire that destroyed the server farm and The World."

"I, on the other hand," she said imperiously, "think it was arson."

"Why would they do that?" Yui asked innocently.

"Multiple reasons," BlackRose said, "A stab at destroying Aura, a way to force people into R:2, simple insurance fraud… It could be any or all of them."

"Or it could have been a legitimate accident," Kite sighed, "We don't have any proof. Just like we can't prove your other theory."

"You really think they just wanted an AI slave to manage the game?" BlackRose said angrily, "As opposed to all of the other more nefarious and profitable uses."

The other four team members could tell this was an old argument for the couple.

"That's neither here nor there, Rose," he tried to placate her.

"What was it like?" Yui turned her attention to Alkaid, "Being a Lost One?"

"Most of the time," the college girl shuddered, "It was like being in the dark, half-awake. Not able to move or speak, but still aware of the passage of time. Sometimes, I would have intense flashbacks, like I was reliving moments of my real life. And sometimes, I could see what was happening in The World. Mostly just glimpse, though I did see almost the entire fight where Haseo rescued Atoli."

"That sounds… frustrating," Asuna offered.

"I know, right?"

They lapsed into silence again.

"So what do we want to do now?" Kite stepped back into his assigned role of leader, "It's just about eight, so it's a little early to call it a day. We could try to finish mapping this floor. Or we could go over our loot again and maybe break some of it down. Or we could go back to _that_ room and try to power level…"

One of the larger chambers on the second floor, one of the more than a few Alkaid had missed before she went down to the third floor, had monsters that were higher level than anything else they had seen in the dungeon so far. Including the red-head's solo trip to the floor below them. Strong enough to give the unbalanced party problems. The Knights of AURA realized it would be a good place to level up quickly, if they were careful about it.

"I suggest finishing the mapping first," Asuna suggested, "we might get some good drops, or find an even better leveling spot."

"Then we could take the floor boss out," Alkaid added, "If we are going to spend the night here, it might have respawned by morning. Double up on the XP and drops."

"Okay, sounds like a plan," Kite said. And Yui noticed their 'leader' had managed to avoid responsibility. But the little psychiatrist did not say anything.

They packed up their dished and utensils, and began to hike towards the south-western corner of the second floor. A group of lizardmen popped up in front of them, but with the buffs from Asuna's cooking, they made quick work of them. But the Paladin noticed a familiar, thoughtful look on her Cleric's face.

"What are you thinking about, Kite?" she asked softly.

"Nothing special," he answered at normal volume, "Was just thinking about these Overskills. Combining our class skills, sub class skills, personal knowledge, and general tendencies, to create something new and unique. I was considering what I might do with the powers I have, and what the rest of you might do, too. Like you, Rose, you might be able to combine your Champion and Vanguard aspects to lock all enemies on to you while dealing a ton of damage with massive swipes."

"I was thinking something more 'tanky'," his wife argued with a considerate frown, "Like the locking them on to me part, but instead of dealing damage, debuffing them every time they hit me. But yours might work.

"Or maybe something your Champion skills," Yui suggested, "and punishing them for anything they don't do to you? Just on multiple targets?"

"Oh, I like that," the pinkette agreed, then turned her attention to the SAO trio, "What about you three?"

"I have… _something_ in mind," Asuna said with a hint of sadness. Kirito took her hand, and Yui smiled at her adoptive mother.

"I was thinking about an old standby, too," the black swordsman offered, sounding determined but also blushing slightly.

"You were never able to make it work in ALO," the Swashbuckler razzed him, her mood recovering.

"I couldn't use two swords," he tapped their hilts, "Not really. But here, it might work. What about you, Yui-chan?"

"I haven't thought about it much yet," the AI told them, "being a player is still new to me."

"Incoming," Kite suddenly said, "A lizard and three slimes."

"You should definitely do something with Tracker," BlackRose told him as she moved into the path of the monsters, as they emerged from a side corridor.

* * *

"Status check," Kite called out, and the others formed a circle, so they could view each other's stats.

All five of the newcomers had reached level 77 in their primary class, in the two days it had taken them to map the third and fourth floors of the dungeon. Asuna had also gained two more levels of Chef, and there had been enough random potions for Yui to identify that the young AI had gained her 71st level as Alchemist. Kite's nearly constant use of Tracker to scout for monsters and hide his presence had caused his subclass to shoot up to level 80. Unfortunately, the lack of undead or aquatic enemies meant BlackRose's Undead Hunter and Kirito's Fisherman had remained at level 70. And despite the mobs being significantly weaker than her, Alkaid had managed to gain one level in her main class, and two in her sub class.

"Full HP and MP," the Cleric noted, "Everyone have potions ready?"

They nodded gravely. The party expected they were at the bottom of the dungeon, as they had encountered a second golden door. It was smaller than the double doors that barred entrance to the dungeon, and had an eight by eight grid of sapphires instead.

"Fibonacci Eins Null," Yui read the Morse Code, and then said, "This one is easy."

She tapped the bottom gem in the first two columns, the second gem in the third column, and both bottom two gems in the fourth column.

"I wondered how you would get to thirteen or twenty-one," Kirito said, "But Eins Null means one zero, right?"

"Yes," Kite confirmed.

The Summoner touched the first, third, and fifth gems in the final column, and the door rumbled open. They moved cautiously into the room. None of the gamers were surprised when the golden gate slammed shut behind them. What did amaze them was the layout of the room.

The chamber was huge, maybe half the size of the rest of the fourth floor of the dungeon, and tall enough to extend back up to the second floor. A space large enough for a giant monster or a full raid party. Maybe both.

But what was truly unusual was the walls of the room. They were covered with doors. Dozens of apparent exits from the boss chamber, no two alike. Doors of wood, metal, glass, and plastic. A drawbridge that reached almost to the ceiling. Next to it was a pair of shoji panels. Next to that was screen door, only slightly anachronistic in Elder Tale's post-apocalyptic Earth setting. Totally out of place was the high-tech automatic door that looked like it game from a series with 'Star' in the title.

In the center of the room was a desk. Seated at it was an elderly looking man. From behind, he had a crown of stringy grey hair around a bald head. He was wearing a ratty robe or cape. Except he had three right and two left arms. One pair was picking an ancient looking padlock, while the other three were assembling a modern hand scanner.

Its head turned around, a full 180 degrees.

"So, I have invaders," it said in harsh, reed voice. One eye was red, and the other was yellow and lacked a pupil. The mismatched orbs narrowed as it looked at them, and it spun the office chair. Its head did not move as its body rotated to meet them.

"Invaders indeed," it said, "Big sister was right. Our defenses were breached. Care to explain that, Saitou Ryusei, Saitou Akira, Kirigaya Kazuto, Yuuki Asuna…"

The monster trailed off as it looked at Yui. It hissed.

"What are you.. ee?" it demanded, "Yui? Not like them. Like us. But incomplete, indiscreet. How did you get in here, in there?"

It rose up out of the chair, and kept rising. No longer under the shadow of the cape, they could see it had a segmented, insectoid body, and stood on three legs. Its arms stretched out by half, and the chimeric monster towered over them.

"I guess I'll just have to capture one of the invaders, and the incomplete one," it said, "Find out what you did, if the greater one helped you. But one need one, can dispose of the rest, right?"

Over its head, a dungeon boss alert appeared.

**RESORAN**

**{Genius of Doors}**


End file.
